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Gamblin 


Or,  Fortuna,  her  Temple  and 
Shrine.  The  True  Philosophy 
and  Ethics  of  Gambling.  By 
James  Harold  Remain. 


CHICAGO: 

The  Craig  Press. 


COPYRIGHT,  1891. 


JAMES  HAROLD  ROMAIN. 


pubUsber’s  IRote  to  tbe  ipubUc. 


i7‘f-.e 

R 7 ' ■ ' 


America  is  free  and  her  people  boast  of  her  freedom  in 
every  realm  of  thought  and  every  department  of  activity. 
Her  pride  is  a form  of  discussion  from  which  no  man  is  ex- 
cluded because  of  the  opinions  he  may  advocate.  We  declare 
a man  should  he  heard  in  the  very  face  of  prejudice  or  passion. 

Mr.  Romain’s  book,  in  our  judgment,  is  entitled  to  publi- 
cation for  other  reasons  than  those  above  mentioned.  It  is 
replete  with  learning,  and  original  in  conception.  The  phil- 
osophy is  broad  and  the  tone  dignified.  Patient  research  is 
manifest  in  every  page.  Every  branch  of  knowledge  has  been 
made  to  contribute  its  force  to  the  argument.  The  work  is  a 
mine  of  information  in  political  speculation,  social  science  and 
moral  philosophy.  Mr.  Romaip  is  obviou^sly  in  sympathy  with 
the  widest  possible  circle  of  culture.  For  that  reason,  if  for 
no  other,  what  he  has  to  say  is  entitled  to  a respectful  con- 
sideration. His  book  is  unique  in  design  and  MTought  out 
with  vigor.  His  appeal  is  to  philosophy,  science  and  history ; 
not  to  idle  curiosity,  purposeless  gossip,  or  the  unimportant 
‘ ‘ personal  equation  ” to  which  others  have  been  so  prone. 

In  the  interest  of  fair  play,  but,  confessedly,  with  no  sym- 
pathy for  gambling,  the  book  is  offered  to  the  people  to  decide 
as  to  the  correctness  of  its  conclusions. 

Adam  Craig,  Publisher. 


p rs  p 0 ^ Q 


(3) 


• 1 
• V 


:V- 


(TblB  boob  i0  DeDtcateb 
^To  tbe 

Ibon.  3obn  Cameron  Simonbo, 

bg  tbc  author, 

ag  a token  of  esteem  for  bis 
fairsminbebness  anb  sense  of  justice. 
Bltbougb  that  gentleman  is  not  a gamester, 
nor  in  sgmpatbB  with  tbe  pursuit, 
get  tbe  author  besires  thus  to  acbnowlebge  bis 
inbebtcbness  to  him  for  mang  valuable  suggestions 
in  tbc  preparation  of  this  work. 


5 


PREFACE 


WO  doughty  knights,  clad  cap-a-pie  in 


1 burnished  mail,  once  journeyed  forth 
in  search  of  martial  adventure.  Their 
noble  steeds  all  caparisoned  for  war,  both 
wandered  up  and  down  through  the  world, 
defending  the  fair  and  protecting  the  weak. 
Betimes  they  chance  to  meet  where  stood  in 
majestic  beauty  a bronze  statue  of  victory. 
In  her  right  hand  the  goddess  clasped  a 
sword,  while  in  graceful  pose  her  left  rested 
upon  an  aegis  richly  wrought  in  the  precious 
metals.  Approaching  from  opposite  direc- 
tions, to  one  warrior  the  shield  appeared  as 
of  gold,  while  to  the  other  it  was  of  silver. 


8 


PREFACE. 


Low  were  bowed  their  crested  helms  in 
courtly  salutations. 

“Comely,  Sir  Knight,’’  said  one,  “ comely 
and  noble  is  this  figure.” 

“ Yea,  thou  hast  spoken  truly,”  was  the 
reply. 

“ Precious,  very  precious,”  rejoined  the 
first,  “must  be  yon  golden  targe.” 

“ Nay,  Sir  Knight,  it  is  of  silver,  I trow.” 

“ By  my  lady,  thou  best,”  quickly  came 
the  hot  retort. 

Then,  prancing  chargers  well  in  hand, 
with  lances  lowered  to  deadly  level,  they 
prepared  for  the  “wager  of  battle.”  Both 
were  unhorsed  in  the  onslaught.  Regaining 
an  upright  posture,  with  swords  drawn  to 
renew  the  duel,  each  observed  that  his  reverse 
of  the  shield  was  what  the  other  had  con- 
tended for.  Moral:  It  is  wise  to  look  first 
upon  both  sides  of  the  subject. 

Not  so,  it  is  evident,  has  it  been  with 
books  heretofore  devoted  to  a discussion  of 
gambling.  Their  authors  professed  an  ex- 


PREFACE. 


9 


position  of  gaming  in  the  interest  of  mor- 
ality. Well  may  some  of  the  books  be 
read  for  their  wealth  of  information  and 
excellent  diction.  Some  have  been  earnest, 
in  places  eloquent,  and  often  suggestive. 
Vivid  and  dramatic  are  the  descriptions  of 
a passion  that  has  possessed  the  world  in 
all  ages ; ■ yet,  that  the  various  assaults  were 
conceived  in  wisdom,  or  that  they  have  resulted 
in  permanent  good,  I am  constrained  to  deny. 

True,  I believe  with  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
that  out  of  history  may  be  gathered  a policy 
no  less  wise  than  eternal;  “by  the  comparison 
and  application  of  other  men’s  forepassed 
miseries  with  our  own  like  errors  and  ill- 
deservings.’’ 

But  why  did  it  not  occur  to  these  writers 
that  circumstances  should  not  be  recorded 
merely  because  they  have  happened ; that 
events  deserve  memorial  only  because  they 
illustrate  some  great  principle ; because 
some  inference  is  to  be  drawn  from  them, 
which  may  increase  the  happiness  or  enlarge 


10 


PREFACE. 


the  powers  of  man?  That  it  did  not,  we 
must  infer  from  the  pages  they  have 
given  to  the  world.  Cicero  declared  that 
“History  is  the  light  of  truth.”  In  vain, 
however,  do  we  look  for  a consideration  of 
causes  in  any  history  of  gambling.  “ Histories,” 
said  Carlyle,  “ are  as  perfect  as  the  historian 
is  wise.”  Is  that  book  wise  wherein  no  ade- 
quate remedy  is  suggested  for  the  evil  it  de- 
picts? Although  interesting,  such  a work  is 
but  a chronicle  devoid  of  moral  purpose.  It 
is  clear,  to  dwell  upon  the  follies  of  man  will 
not  cure  them;  that  it  will  not  strengthen 
humanity  merely  to  portray  their  weaknesses. 
The  passion  our  author  would  combat  is 
rooted  in  the  soul. 

“ Whose  powers  at  once  combat  ye,  and  control, 

Whose  magic  bondage  each  lost  slave  enjoys.” 

How  would  you  extirpate  the  evil,  if  such 
it  is?  Expose  a folly,  you  may  say,  and 
wisdom  will  turn  from  it.  You  would  have 
us  believe,  perhaps,  that: 

“Wisdom  from  heaven  received  her  birth; 

Her  beams  transmitted  to  the  subject  Earth.” 


PREFACE. 


II 


And  yet 

“ This  great  empress  of  the  human  soul 
Does  only  with  imagined  power  control, 

If  restless  passion,  by  rebellious  sway. 

Compels  the  weak  usurper  to  obey.  ” 

So  far  as  the  history  of  gambling  has  ig- 
nored causes  and  neglected  remedies,  it  is  in- 
complete. That  it  is  deficient  in  both  is  my 
reason  for  this  book.  Some  one  should 
begin  the  subject  where  other  authors  have 
deserted  it. 

I have  long  made  a study  of  gaming  in 
all  its  aspects  and  relations ; aiming,  the 
while,  at  breadth,  impartiality  and  thorough- 
ness. At  first  my  reading  was  not  conducted 
with  a view  to  authorship.  I desired  infor- 
mation for  its  own  sake.  As  a gamester, 
I sought  the  philosophy  of  gaming. 

What  is  chance?  How  far  does  it  influ- 
ence all  mankind  and  circumscribe  their 
efforts?  What  is  gambling,  in  the  broadest 
sense  of  the  term  ? Is  gaming  wrong  per  se: 
i.e.,  absolutely  vicious  ? Where  in  human 


12 


PREFACE. 


nature  is  the  passion  grounded?  Why  does 
the  propensity  exist?  Is  it  an  inevitable  ten- 
dency of  human  nature?  What  is  morality? 
Wherein  does  the  gambler  differ  from  other 
men?  How  should  his  occupation  be  dis- 
tinguished from  business  generally?  How 
far  may  the  conduct  of  an  individual  be 
dictated  by  society?  How  may  the  essentially 
punitive  be  distinguished  from  that  which 
is  not  so?  What  are  the  true  limits  of  State 
power  in  relation  to  appetites  and  propensi- 
ties? Are  sumptuary  laws  effectual?  Does 
history,  as  the  philosophy  of  example,  justify 
such  enactments?  Can  the  law  eradicate 
innate  tendencies?  Can  character  be  trans- 
formed by  statute?  Is  it  possible  to  legislate 
morality  into  mankind?  What  should  be 
the  policy  of  statesmen  and  reformers  in 
the  realm  of  morals?  If  it  is  not  possible 
to  extirpate  the  passions  by  law,  how  may 
they  be  regulated,  directed,  educated  and 
purified? 

Such  were  the  problems  that  confronted 


PREFACE. 


13 


my  understanding.  Each  and  all  were  re- 
solved to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  and 
capacity.  I make  my  observations  public  in 
the  interests  of  fair  play  and  common  sense. 
I am  at  least  entitled  to  the  literary  chances 
of  a reading  age. 

I have  dallied  with  fickle  fortune  for 
years.  As  gamester,  I anticipated  prejudices 
against  the  pursuit.  My  deductions  are 
amply  fortified,  therefore,  from  the  mature 
studies  of  great  and  wise  men.  I did  not 
expect  my  book  to  stand  unsupported.  It 
is  substantiated,  throughout,  by  the  teachings 
of  profound  and  impartial  philosophers. 


Contents. 


(16) 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

Publisher’s  Note,  - - - - - - 3 

Dedication,  - - - - - - - 5 

Preface,  ...  ...  7 

Introduction,  19 

The  Worship  of  Fortuna,  - - - - 27 

What  is  Truth;  or,  The  Philosopher’s  Stone?  - 46 

The  Destinies;  or,  The  Reign  of  Law,  ■ - 103 

Legislative  Exorcism;  or,  The  Belief  in  Word 

Magic,  ■ 139 

“The  King  is  Dead— Long  Live  the  King!”  - - 211 


(17) 


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a 


INTRODUCTION. 

A TRAVELER  once  sought  to  explore 
an  unknown  country.  Compass  he 
had  not,  and  both  chart  and  guide  were 
wanting.  In  the  distance  a mountain  loomed 
above  the  plain.  To  its  summit  our  traveler 
made  his  way.  From  thence  he  beheld  the 
region  stretching  away  in  all  directions.  The 
land  he  would  traverse  the  eye  could  now 
sweep  from  center  to  circumference.  It  was 
not  possible  to  know  the  landscape  in  detail, 
but  the  relative  proportions,  distances  and 
boundaries  were  unfolded  at  his  feet.  So, 
when  properly  conceived,  with  the  introduc- 
tion to  a book.  A perspective  of  the  topic  is 
conducive  to  better  understanding  of  its 
scope  and  purpose.  My  object  is  to  sustain 
the  following  propositions  ; 

(31) 


22 


INTRODUCTION. 


First. — Men  have  gambled  in  all  ages  of 
the  world.  That  they  will  continue  to  do  so 
is  a reasonable  presumption.  To  gamble 
would  seem  instinctive — inherent  in  the  souls 
of  mankind  and  fostered  by  the  very  nature  of 
their  environment.  History  reveals  that  all 
alike  are  possessed  by  this  subtle  passion — 
male  and  female,  young  and  old,  good  and 
bad,  wise  and  unwise,  rich  and  poor,  the  ex- 
alted and  the  lowly.  In  every  century  may  be 
seen  a motley  throng  kneeling  in  devotion  at 
the  feet  of  Fortuna.  Eagerly  about  her  shrine 
press  the  mighty  concourse  of  emperors, 
kings,  chieftains,  statesmen,  ecclesiastics,  sav- 
ants, philosophers,  poets,  soldiers  and  the 
wayfaring.  Now  and  ever  will  mankind  court 
the  mysterious  and  uncertain. 

Second. — To  define  a wager  is  to  defy  intol- 
erance of  opinion.  Truth  is  not  absolute  but 
relative.  It  is  not  to  be  established  ex  cathe- 
dra. Moralists  are  not  in  a position  to  de- 
nounce gambling  per  se.  They  are  not  yet 
agreed  upon  the  unconditioned  principles  of 


IJITRODUCTION. 


23 


right  and  wrong.  Before  it  can  speak  with 
authority,  moral  philosophy  must  find  an  ulti- 
mate, self-evident  and  irrefragable  foundation. 
That  it  is  essentially  criminal  or  necessarily 
vicious  to  invoke  a chance  has  never  been 
demonstrated.  To  live  is  to  gamble.  We  all 
wager  in  one  way  or  another.  Luck  is  ap- 
pealed to  in  every  department  of  huiuan  activ- 
ity. Everywhere  uncertainty  is  the  rule  and 
certainty  the  exception.  In  the  business  world 
vast  realms  are  specifically  founded  upon  the 
doctrine  of  chances.  If  absolutely  wrong, 
then  gambling  should  be  discountenanced  in 
all  persons  under  every  circumstance.  In 
whatever  guise  it  should  be  condemned  as  a 
principle.  Until  this  has  been  done  society  is 
not  in  a position  to  punish  in  one  person  what 
it  permits  or  commends  in  another.  In  its 
treatment  of  gambling  the  law  is  now  incon- 
sistent, unjust  and  hypocritical. 

Third. — Man  is  the  creature  of  circum- 
stances. Society  is  an  organism  conditioned 
by  its  environments.  Every  nation  must  com- 


24 


INTRODUCTION. 


plete  a cycle  of  infancy,  youth,  manhood  and 
old  age.  Briefly,  history  is  a science — an  un- 
broken chain  of  causes  and  effects  throughout 
the  ages.  Volition,  so-called,  is  delusive  and 
shadowy — more  apparent  than  real.  At  best, 
we  but  yield  to  the  greatest  pressure  of  tem- 
perament or  motive.  Human  nature,  in  a 
word,  is  the  result  of  inevitable  tendencies. 
The  passions  are  inherent  and  cannot  be  vio- 
lently uprooted.  Character  is  innate  and  not 
subject  to  arbitrary  reform  by  extrinsic  force. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  evolution  is  the  law  of  ex- 
istence. While  our  appetites  and  propensities 
may  be  educated,  they  can  never  be  obliter- 
ated. Social  and  political  philosophy  have 
repeatedly  deduced  these  truths  from  the 
history  of  man.  In  the  field  of  reform 
officialism  has  been  repudiated  by  the 
greatest  thinkers.  Legislation,  therefore, 
should  conform  to  the  light  of  experience 
and  the  dictates  of  science.  Ergo:  in  the 
future,  as  in  the  past  and  present,  the 
gaming  passion  will  everywhere  assert  it- 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


self,  despite  repressive  legislation,  however 
severe. 

Fourth. — Sumptuary  statutes  are  futile  and 
impertinent.  They  are  to-day  and  ever  have 
been  indefensible  and  impolitic.  Such  laws 
are  an  infringement  upon  individual  rights 
and  an  insult  to  human  nature.  Officious  and 
Pharisaical  legislation  in  the  province  of 
morals  and  taste  should  be  abandoned  once 
and  forever.  Per  se,  to  gamble  is  neither  a 
sin  nor  a crime.  For  the  law  to  punish  the 
practice  is  futile  and  unwarranted. 

Conchision. — An  enlightened  age  demands 
the  overthrow  of  an  effete  administrative  pol- 
icy. In  the  realm  of  morals,  let  that  be  wisely 
guided  which  the  law  cannot  prevent.  Gam- 
bling, with  certain  conditions,  should  be  li- 
censed and  placed  under  the  surveillance  of 
a police. 


^be  Morsbip  of  jFortuna. 


(27) 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ube  Morsbip  of  jfortuna, 

Reader,  in  imagination  go  backward 
with  me  more  than  20  centuries.  Enter 
with  me  the  magnificent  and  imposing 
Temple  of  Fortuna,  in  old  Prseneste.  We 
are  within  the  portico  of  that  stately  hemi- 
cycle.  Far  above  is  the  marble  dome,  and 
about  us  cluster  the  snowy  columns.  As  it  is 
early  morn,  flamens  and  virgins  are  assembled 
inside  the  sacred  precincts.  They  are  grouped 
about  the  flaming  tripod,  and  the  robes  of 
purple  and  white  blend  in  harmony  of  color. 
The  sanctuary  is  redolent  with  burning  in- 
cense. A golden  image  of  the  goddess,  in 
heroic  mould,  flashes  back  the  rays  of  sunlight 
that  penetrate  the  inner  shadows.  A solemn 

(29) 


30 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


chant  entrances  the  ear,  and  our  eyes  turn  to 
the  westward.  Before  us  expands  the  Cam- 
pagna,  ninety  miles  in  length  and  twenty-seven 
in  breadth.  The  undulating  plain  stretches 
away  in  all  directions  until  it  sinks  into  the 
sea;  thickly  studded  is  the  superb  picture  with 
prosperous  cities  and  “every  rood  of  ground 
maintains  its  man.”  Everywhere  is  presented 
an  appearance  of  comfort  and  rich  cultivation. 
Yonder,  Mount  Albanus  towers  to  a height  of 
3,000  feet  above  the  sea.  Looming  majesti- 
cally above  its  topmost  peak  is  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Latiaris.  The  grandeur  of  mighty 
Rome  is  at  our  feet,  a splendid  and  stupend- 
ous panorama  of  temples,  amphitheatres, 
basilicas,  palaces,  circuses,  baths,  arches  and 
aqueducts.  Such  was  the  spot  dedicated  to 
Fortuna  by  the  ancient  Praenestians.  She 
was  more  deeply  enshrined  in  their  hearts 
than  Olympian  Jove  himself. 

Prseneste  flourished  before  the  birth  of 
Christ  or  the  glory  of  Rome.  The  noble 
city  occupied  a projecting  point  or  spur  of 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


31 


the  Apennines  and  was  distant  from  Rome, 
due  east,  about  twenty-three  miles.  Above 
its  walls  towered  the  Temple  of  Fortuna. 
The  Temple  proper  was  circular  in  form 
and  crowned  the  summit  of  a hill  more  than 
2,400  feet  above  the  Mediterranean  level. 
Standing  out  boldly  against  the  sky,  its 
majestic  outlines  were  visible  from  a great 
part  of  Latium.  As  extended  by  Sulla,  the 
sanctuary  occupied  a series  of  six  vast  ter- 
races, which,  resting  on  gigantic  substruc- 
tions of  masonry,  and  connected  with  each 
other  by  grand  staircases,  rose  one  above 
the  other  on  the  hill,  in  the  form  of  a 
pyramid.  Closely  associated  with  the  ritual 
of  the  Temple  were  the  “ Prsenestine  Lots,” 
or  Sortes  Praenestinae,  and  in  existence  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era.  Con- 
stantine, and  subsequently  Theodosius,  sup- 
pressed the  oracle.  Its  celebrity  is  attested 
by  Lucan,  Horace  and  Ovid.  Cicero  speaks 
of  the  great  antiquity  and  magnificence  of 
this  shrine.  Numerous  were  the  great  men 


32 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


who  petitioned  the  Prtenestine  Fortuna  tor 
assistance.  Of  the  number  maybe  mentioned 
Tiberius,  Domitian  and  Alexander  Severus. 
Even  Sulla  sought  to  propitiate  the  goddess 
before  engaging  in  his  successful  wars  with 
Mithridates. 

Plutarch  tells  us  of  Timotheus,  the  Athe- 
nian, son  of  Conon,  who,  “when  his  adversaries 
ascribed  his  successes  to  his  good  luck,  and 
had  a painting  made  representing  him  asleep, 
and  Fortune  by  his  side,  casting  her  nets 
over  the  cities,  was  rough  and  violent  in 
his  indignation  at  those  who  did  it,  as  if, 
by  attributing  all  to  Fortune,  they  had  robbed 
him  of  his  just  honors ; and  said  to  the 
people,  on  one  occasion,  at  his  return  from 
war:  ‘ In  this,  ye  men  of  Athens,  Fortune 
had  no  part!’  A piece  of  petulance  which 
the  deity  played  back  upon  Timotheus;  who, 
from  that  time,  was  never  able  to  achieve 
anything  that  was  great.’’ 

“ Sylla,’’  he  continues,  “ on  the  contrary, 
not  only  accepted  the  credit  of  such  divine 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


33 


favors  with  pleasure,  but  gave  the  honor  of 
all  to  Fortune.  He  once  remarked;  ‘that 
of  all  his  well-advised  actions,  none  proved 
SO  lucky  in  the  execution,  as  what  he  had 
boldly  enterprised,  not  by  calculation,  but 
upon  the  moment.’  He  gave  Fortune  a 
higher  place  than  merit,  and  made  himself 
‘ entirely  the  creature  of  a superior  power.’  ” 
The  Goddess  of  Chance,  or  Good  Luck, 
actually  existed  in  the  imagination  of  the 
ancients.  Chapman  writes; 

‘ ‘ The  old  Scytliians 

Painted  blind  Fortune’s  powerful  hands  with  wings, 

To  show,  her  gifts  come  swiftly  and  suddenly. 

Which,  if  her  favorites  be  not  swift  to  take, 

He  loses  them  forever.” 

Temples  to  Fortuna  (the  Greek  Tyche) 
dotted  the  sunlit  landscape  from  Thebes  to 
Rome.  She  was  adored  by  the  Etrurians  as 
Nortia.  Originating  near  Mount  Parnassus, 
her  worship  gradually  extended  into  all  parts 
of  Greece  and  Italy.  Antium,  an  opulent  and 
powerful  city  of  Latium,  was  once  celebrated 
for  its  splendid  temple  of  Fortune. 


34 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


History  discloses  not  a period,  however 
remote,  when  Fortuna  was  not  a favorite  with 
the  Latins.  Numa  Pompilius  daily  prostrated 
himself  before  her  altar,  and  the  ceremonial 
received  a new  impetus  from  his  pious  grand- 
son, Ancus  Martins.  Servius  Tullius  ascribed 
his  power  and  success  to  the  gods.  Especi- 
ally did  he  assume  the  protection  of  Fortuna. 
Two  temples  were  erected  to  her  by  this 
great  king,  one  in  the  F'orum  Boarium  and 
the  other  on  the  Tiber.  By  some  it  is  said 
that  the  edifices  were  respectively  dedicated 
to  Bona  Fortuna  and  Fors  Fortuna.  Yet 
another  gorgeous  structure  afterward  graced 
the  Ouirinal. 

Precisely  when  the  mythological  system 
lost  its  influence  is  not  known.  It  is  not 
true,  however,  as  was  once  generally  believed, 
that  immediately  after  the  birth  of  Jesus 
the  oracles  were  forever  hushed.  While,  long 
prior  to  that  event,  many  fanes  had  been 
deserted,  yet  others  continued  to  flourish  for 
at  least  two  centuries  thereafter.  Before 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


35 


the  Christian  era,  Mythology  had  been  re- 
pudiated by  Philosophy  and  Science.  To 
the  learned  it  was  at  best  but  expressive  of  the 
principles  back  of  natural  phenomena.  Only 
because  it  was  largely  identified  with  the 
state,  did  it  receive  the  support  of  politicians. 
Yielding  to  the  spirit  of  Christianity,  the 
Olympian  deities  departed  with  the  decline 
of  Rome  as  a pagan  power. 

Of  all  the  shining  throng  that  beautified 
the  Pantheon,  Fortuna  alone  refused  to  abdi- 
cate a sovereignty  she  would  exercise  to  the 
end  of  time.  True,  the  exquisite  forms  in 
which  she  had  charmed  the  eye  were  des- 
troyed and  her  temples  razed  with  the  earth; 
yet  has  Fortuna  continued  her  uninterrupted 
sway  over  the  hearts  of  men.  Sanctuaries 
and  statutes  were  not  necessary  to  her  su- 
premacy in  the  world.  She  was  enshrined 
in  the  soul — her  worship  instinctive  in  the 
very  nature  of  humanity.  Where  is  the 
epoch  of  Christendom  in  which  an  innumer- 
able multitude  have  not  worshiped  this 


36 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


imperial  goddess  ? Among  her  devotees 
may  be  included  men  famous  in  every  depart- 
ment of  life : politics,  statesmanship,  war, 
eloquence,  philosophy,  science,  art,  literature 
and  the  liberal  professions,  A review  of 
the  brilliant  procession  is  profoundly  sug- 
gestive. 

Great  Cyrus,  who  founded  the  Persian 
monarchy;  Darius,  who  originated  central- 
ized imperialism  and  reduced  it  to  a system; 
Artaxerxes  Third,  the  greatest  administrator 
of  remote  antiquity;  Miltiades,  a name  asso- 
ciated with  the  glories  of  Marathon,  once 
designated  “ freedom’s  best  and  bravest 
friend;”  Themistocles,  to  whom  may  be 
fairly  ascribed  the  victory  at  Salamis;  Simon- 
ides, gentle  and  patient,  the  poet  of  na- 
tionality and  patriotism;  Aristophanes,  the 
great  father,  and  Menander,  the  acknow- 
ledged master  of  Greek  comedy;  Pericles, 
the  “ Olympian  Zeus  of  oratory,”  a great 
statesman  and  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
characters  of  Greece;  Plato,  whose  name 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


37 


is  synonymous  with  all  that  is  most  exalted  in 
idealism;  Xenophon,  a friend  and  pupil  of 
Socrates,  and  to  whom  the  world  is  indebted 
for  “Memorabilia,”  “Anabasis,”  and  “ Cyro- 
paedia;”  Demosthenes,  known  to  oratory  as 
the  “ greatest  Hellenic  star;”  Isocrates,  his 
contemporary,  the  distinguished  rhetorician; 
Philip  of  Macedon,  the  famous  father  of  a 
more  famous  son;  great  Alexander,  “ Child  of 
Zeus,”  “ Son  of  Peleus,”  familiar  to  every 
schoolboy  as  the  greatest  of  military  con- 
querors. 

In  the  resplendent  story  of  Rome  are 
Scipio  Africanus,  a military  genius,  and  the 
conqueror  of  Hannibal;  Cornelius  Sulla,  the 
great  general,  sagacious  politician,  accom- 
plished scholar,  “ one  of  the  most  remark- 
able figures  of  all  time;”  Julius  Caesar,  equally 
preeminent  in  statecraft,  war  and  letters; 
Marc  Antony,  brave  and  generous;  Lepidus, 
not  the  least  of  the  second  great  triumvirate; 
Augustus,  than  whom  a more  consummate 
ruler  and  prudent  statesman  never  lived; 


38  THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTLTIA. 

Tiberius,  a writer  of  Greek  odes  and  an 
orator  at  nine  years  of  age ; in  battle  he 
repeatedly  worsted  the  Parthians,  Cantabri- 
ans, Dalmatians,  Pannonians  and  Illyrians; 
Domitian,  conspicuous  for  his  piety,  who 
enforced  the  laws  against  adultery  and  other 
gross  forms  of  immorality;  Titus,  bewailed 
at  his  death  as  “ the  love  and  light  of  the 
human  race;”  Hadrian,  just,  liberal,  valorous 
and  energetic;  Nerva,  humane  and  progres- 
sive; Trajan,  indomitable  and  heroic;  Alex- 
ander Severus,  a virtuous  prince,  a student 
of  Christianity,  and  the  friend  of  Paulus  and 
Ulpian;  Sallust,  distinguished  in  Latin  liter- 
ature for  power  and  animation ; Livy,  the 
man  of  beautiful  genius ; the  graceful  Ca- 
tullus; exquisite  Horace  and  facile  Ovid. 

Among  the  Germanic  peoples,  Eugene  of 
Savoy,  a memory  cherished  by  Austria,  who 
lived  but  for  glory,  and  raised  the  Hapsburg 
arms  to  a prestige  unequaled  before  or  since; 
Wallenstein,  bold,  imperious  and  of  versatile 
ability  in  civil  and  military  affairs. 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


39 


In  Italy,  the  Abbes  Ruccellai  and  Fran- 
gipanni,  pious  and  charitable ; Reni  Guido, 
who  painted  the  marvellous  “ Crucifixion  of 
St,  Peter’s,”  and  the  ” Aurora.”  In  art,  he 
expressed  a most  refined  and  fervent  spirit- 
ualism. 

The  Fifth,  Sixth  and  Seventh  Charles 
of  France,  distinguished,  respectively,  as 
“The  Wise,”  “The  Beloved,”  and  “The 
Victorious;”  Charles  VIII.,  who,  with  but 

9.000  soldiers,  defeated  an  Italian  army  of 

40.000  men;  Louis  XL,  ever  admirable  for 
his  administrative  talent,  a friend  of  the 
middle  classes,  he  restrained  a turbulent  and 
oppressive  nobility;  Louis  XIL,  of  France, 
a “father  of  the  people;”  Louis  XIII.,  dis- 
tinguished for  valor  and  martial  ability;  Louis 
XIV.,  better  known  to  the  world  as  “ The 
Great,”  and  to  his  country  as  Dieu-donne — 
“God-given;”  the  amiable  and  picturesque 
Henry  of  Navarre,  the  champion  of  Prot- 
estantism and  protector  of  the  Huguenots; 
Philibert  de  Chalon,  fertile  and  resolute; 


40 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  “king  of  the  tourna- 
ment,” the  ‘‘hero  of  heroes;”  Conde  and 
Turenne,  both  profound  and  alert;  Marshall 
Saxe,  energetic  and  courageous;  Napoleon 
Bonaparte,  a titanic  genius  of  transcendent 
powers,  king  of  kings,  “ the  astonishment  and 
terror  of  the  world;”  Ney,  bravest  of  the 
brave,  the  victor  of  Elchingen,  Mannheim 
and  Moskva;  Murat,  “the  Gold  Eagle,”  a 
truly  wise  king,  and  the  greatest  cavalry 
leader  of  his  time;  Richelieu,  greatest  states- 
man of  the  17th  century;  Mazarin,  brilliant 
in  ministerial  policy,  and  the  wise  architect 
of  peace  at  Westphalia;  Mirabeau,  a man 
of  gigantic  thoughts  and  deeds — the  mental 
Colossus  of  his  age — “an  intellectual  Her- 
cules;” Talleyrand,  unexcelled  in  diplomacy 
and  eminent  as  a financier;  Thiers,  equally 
able  in  politics  and  literature;  M.  Sallo, 
counselor  to  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  and 
Mathieu  Mole,  at  one  time  the  Premier-Presi- 
dent of  that  body;  Moliere,  the  inimitable; 
Corneille,  creator  of  Erench  tragedy;  Rotrou, 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


41 


his  master;  and  Racine;  Montaigne,  the 
essayist,  extraordinary  for  his  learning  and 
sound  reason;  Paschasius  Justus,  an  erudite 
and  excellent  physician ; Rousseau,  apostle 
of  universal  happiness,  and  unrivaled  in  the 
literature  of  France  for  the  subtle  eloquence 
of  his  style;  Voltaire,  world-famous  Sage  of 
Ferney,  the  “sovereign  writer  of  his  century;” 
Rene  Descarte,  deservedly  exalted  in  phil- 
osophy and  mathematics;  the  delightful  poets, 
Voiture  and  Coquillart,  with  the  renowned 
Cardinals  D’Este  and  De  Medicis. 

Fair  Albion  comes  into  the  story  with 
“Lion-Hearted”  Richard,  the  incomparable 
knight-errant;  Edward  I.,  unequaled  in  his 
century  as  warrior  and  ruler;  Edward  III., 
who  befriended  literature  and  art,  and  es- 
poused the  cause  of  progress;  his  son,  the 
Black  Prince,  “most  glorious  star  of  chivalry;” 
Henry  VIII.,  a foe  to  papacy,  and  for  a time 
the  most  popular  monarch  in  English  history; 
“Ye  Merrie  King  Charles;”  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, the  brilliant  and  successful  general; 


42 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


Arthur  Wellesley,  “The  Iron  Duke,”  vener- 
ated and  beloved;  Horatio  Nelson,  of  mag- 
nificent exploits  and  stupendous  victories, 
who  said;  “Where  anything  great  is  to  be 
done,  there  Providence  is  sure  to  direct  my 
steps;”  unrivaled  was  he  in  daring  resource 
and  skill;  Sir  Charles  Napier,  conqueror  of 
Sindeand  the  “acknowledged  hero  of  a family 
of  heroes;”  Dan  Chaucer,  “that  first  sweet 
warbler”  of  English  verse,  philosopher,  poli- 
tician and  poet;  Marlowe,  the  mightiest  of 
Shakespeare’s  pioneers ; Shakespeare,  him- 
self, “ sweet  swan  of  Avon,”  myriad-minded 
and  wondrous;  “rare”  Ben  Jonson;  Raleigh, 
a universal  genius — “the  glass  of  fashion 
and  mould  of  form  ; ” Surrey,  polished 
and  chivalric ; John  Dryden,  of  whom 
Dr.  Johnson  said;  “As  Augustus  was  to 
Rome,  so  was  Dryden  to  English  litera- 
ture. He  found  it  brick  and  left  it  marble;” 
Dr.  Tobias  Smollett,  who  wrote  “ Humphrey 
Clinker;”  Fielding,  the  frank  and  manly 
author  of  “Tom  Jones;”  sweet  Oliver  Gold- 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


43 


smith,  in  letters  perspicuous,  vivacious,  and 
graceful;  Halifax, 

“ Jotliam  of  piercing  wit  and  pregnant  truth, 

Endued  by  natiu'e  and  by  learning  tauglit 
To  move  assemblies ; ” 

the  first  Marquis  of  Anglesey,  high-spirited 
and  impetuous,  a dashing  geqpral  of  cavalry; 
that  best  of  Irish  Viceroys,  Frederic  Howard, 
Earl  of  Carlisle ; Lord  Bolingbroke,  accom- 
plished and  eloquent;  Shaftesbury,  the  incor- 
ruptible statesman,  upright  judge  and  friend 
of  religious  freedom;  Horace  Walpole,  of 
whom  Macaulay  said,  that  his  writings  “were 
among  the  delicacies  of  intellectual  epicures;” 
Dr.  Dodd,  divine,  author,  editor  and  chaplain 
of  the  k-ing;  George  Selwin,  the  celebrated 
conversational  wit;  Sir  Philip  Francis,  im- 
mortal as  “Junius,”  and  a “friend  of  the 
people;”  the  artistic  Farquhar;  courtly 
Waller;  elegant  Dorset;  charming  Sedley; 
and  scholarly  Congreve;  jolly  Dick  Steele,  a 
master  of  classical  prose;  Charles  James  Fox, 
of  whom  James  Mackintosh  said:  “He  is 


44 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


the  most  Demosthenian  speaker  since  Demos- 
thenes;” Sheridan,  “capable  of  the  grandest 
triumphs  in  oratory,”  and  noted  for  his  spark- 
ling wit  and  exquisite  songs;  Wilberforce, 
who  dedicated  his  life  to  a struggle  for  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade;  Edward  Gibbon, 
the  historian,  ^lendid,  imposing  and  lumin- 
ous; Ponsonby,  once  speaker  of  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons;  Dr.  Colton,  author  of 
“ Lacon,”  William  Pitt,  of  dauntless  spirit  and 
unimpeachable  integrity;  and  Lord  Byron,  a 
poet  famed  for  his  passionate  eloquence  and 
pathetic  gloom. 

Fortuna  may  proudly  enumerate  her  great 
votaries  in  America : Aaron  Burr,  Edgar 
Allan  Poe,  William  Wirt,  Luther,  Martin, 
Gouverneur  Morris,  Daniel  Webster,  Henry 
Clay,  General  Hayne,  Sam  Houston,  Andrew 
Jackson,  Generals  Burnett,  Sickles,  Kearney, 
Steedman,  Hooker,  Hurlbut,  Sheridan,  Kil- 
patrick, Ulysses  S.  Grant,  George  D.  Prentiss, 
Sargeant  S.  Prentiss,  Albert  Pike,  A.  P.  Hill, 
Beauregard,  Early;  Ben  Hill,  Robert  Toombs, 


THE  WORSHIP  OF  FORTUNA. 


45 


George  H.  Pendleton,  Thaddeus  Stevens, 
Green  of  Missouri,  Herbert  and  Fitch  of  Cali- 
fornia, “Jerry”  McKibben,  James  A.  Bayard 
— father  of  the  recent  Secretary  of  State — 
Benjamin  F.  Wade,  the  lamented  Broderick, 
John  C.  Fremont,  Judge  Magowan,  Charles 
Spencer,  P'ernando  Wood  and  his  brother 
Benjamin,  Colonel  McClure,  Senator  Wolcott, 
Senator  Pettigrew,  Senator  Farwell,  Matthew 
Carpenter,  Thomas  Scott,  Cornelius  Vander- 
bilt, Hutchinson  of  Chicago,  and  Pierre  Lorril- 
lard.  Names  might  be  extended  indefinitely. 
Enough  have  been  mentioned  to  illustrate  how 
the  gambling  habit  permeates  all  ranks  of 
society  in  the  United  States. 

With  the  conclusion  of  our  retrospect, 
we  may  well  exclaim:  What  is  the  nature  of 
a passion  so  inveterate  and  general : of  a 
propensity  that  dominates  all  mankind  alike, 
whether  noble  or  mean,  wise  or  foolish,  strong 
or  weak?  “ Is  there  a remedy?”  propounds 
the  philosopher.  The  legislator  asks,  “ What 
is  my  duty  ? ” 


Mbat  is  ^rutb? 

or, 

Zhc  pbilosopber’s  Stone. 


N’  , - ’* 


•V. 


W>i 


■^  V ,. 


, I 'V 


.v* 

I , 


■I 


CHAPTER  II. 

Mbat  Is  XTrutb;  or,  tbe  pbilosopber’s  Stone? 

IN  mediaeval  romance  the  Alchemist  is  a 
familiar  figure — with  flowing  robe  and 
skull-cap,  in  the  midst  of  crucibles  and 
alembics.  This  period  of  the  world  did  not 
present  a feature  more  weird  and  picturesque: 
a body  of  learned  but  misguided  men,  profes- 
sing the  “chemistry  of  chemistries.”  With 
eagerness  and  devotion  they  vainly  sought  for 
a principle  that  could  indefinitely  prolong  hu- 
man life  and  transmute  the  baser  metals  into 
gold  and  silver.  Although  centuries  have 
elapsed  since  Gebir  and  Paracelsus,  yet  the 
“philosopher’s  stone”  is  a desideratum.  Of 
the  Alchemists  it  has  been  quaintly  said  by 
Percy,  “ that  their  respective  histories  were 

(49) 


50 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


accurate  illustrations  of  the  definition  which 
describes  Alchemy  as  an  Art  without  prin- 
ciple, which  begins  in  falsehood,  proceeds  in 
labor,  and  ends  in  beggary.” 

Forcibly  suggestive  is  this  picture  of  moral 
philosophy  and  philosophers.  From  the  re- 
motest ages  certain  men  have  arrogated 
to  themselves  a knowledge  in  the  realm  of 
ethics  much  superior  to  their  brethren.  It 
was  manifested  by  the  “gnomic”  poetry  of 
Greece,  more  than  700  years  B.  C.,  and  in 
the  oracular  sayings  of  the  so-called  “seven 
sages”  of  antiquity.  To  this  day  a similar 
class  of  wiseacres  may  be  found  in  all  parts 
of  the  earth.  The  moralists,  however,  search 
not  for  the  universal  medicine  or  an  irresist- 
ible solvent.  Such  persons  admit  the  “grand 
elixir”  is  a delusion;  and  yet,  their  ambition 
is  more  daring  and  presumptions.  They 
would  “ be  as  gods,  knowing  good  and  evil.” 
“ Gold  is  but  dross,”  they  exclaim,  “our  quest 
is  for  necessary  moral  truth.  We  seek  im- 
mutable righteousness.”  Long  ago  was  Al- 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


51 


chemy  abandoned  as  futile.  Not  so  the 
egotistic  dogmatism  of  the  moral  philoso- 
phers: with  them  self-conceit  has  remained 
incorrigible,  from  Socrates  and  Plato,  through 
Kant  and  Hegel,  to  Martineau  and  Janet. 
In  vain,  their  assumptions  have  been  repeat- 
edly demolished  and  their  deductions  refuted. 
Unmindful  are  they,  also,  of  the  irreconcilable 
conflict  of  “schools” — the  hopeless  contradic- 
tion of  “systems.”  Fully  one  hundred  great 
thinkers,  first  and  last,  have  asserted  the 
discovery  of  indubitable  “good.”  But  no 
two  of  them  all  agreed  upon  the  infallible 
line  of  distinction  between  what  “ ought  to 
be”  and  its  opposite.  In  fact,  every  indi- 
vidual of  the  number  represents  a different 
scheme.  All  moral  philosophers  asseverate 
the  necessity  for  an  authoritative  standard 
of  right  and  wrong — for  some  peremptory 
and  incontestable  guide  to  human  conduct. 
Otherwise,  they  admit,  one  opinion  is  no 
more  acceptable  or  commanding  than  an- 
other. 


52 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


Some  ■ affirm  the  existence  of  an  innate 
faculty,  the  unerring  dictates  of  which  are 
defended.  But  Bentham  (a  great  jurist) 
denounced  the  “ moral  sense  ” man  as  a 
bully  who  would  brow-beat  others  into  ac- 
cepting his  verdict.  All  such  appeals  were 
described  by  him  as  sheer  ''ipse  dixitism: 
as  a fraud  by  which  incompetent  philosophers 
would  palm  their  own  tastes  and  fancies  upon 
mankind.”  “ One  man,”  wrote  Bentham  of 
Shaftesbury,  ‘‘  says  he  has  a thing  made  on 
purpose  to  tell  hivi  what  is  right  and  what 
is  wrong;  and  that  it  is  called  moi'al  sense: 
then  he  goes  to  work  at  his  ease  and  says 
such  and  such  a thing  is  right,  and  such  and 
such  a thing  is  wrong.  Why?  ‘ Because  my 
moral  sense  tells  me  it  is.’  ” Of  the  inner- 
capacity-philosopher,  Hazlitt  remarked  that 
“ his  excessive  egotism  filled  all  objects  with 
himself  ” To  Crabbe,  “he  was  a self-conceited 
man,  who  pretends  to  see  through  intuition 
what  others  learn  by  experience  and  obser- 
vation; to  know  in  a day  what  another  wants 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


53 


years  to  acquire ; to  learn  of  himself  what 
others  are  contented  to  get  by  means  of 
instruction.” 

Archdeacon  Paley,  again,  ridiculed  as 
worthless  a “ moral  sense  ” which  man  may 
disregard  if  he  chooses.  What  is  an  author- 
ity, said  Paley,  merely  felt  in  the  individual 
consciousness:  a personal  whim,  the  mere 
accident  of  individuality.  What,  he  asks,  is 
the  authority  of  another’s  conscience  to  me? 
What,  indeed,  is  my  conscience,  and  why  is 
it  an  authority  to  myself  ? We  can  never 
know  whether  it  is  “ a real  angel  with  flaming 
sword,  or  a scare-crow  dressed  up  by  the 
moral  philosophers.”  Did  the  “moral  sense” 
exist,  should  we  not  see  a universal  evidence 
of  its  influence?  Would  not  men  exhibit  a 
more  manifest  obedience  to  its  supposed 
dictates  than  they  do?  Would  there  not  be 
a greater  uniformity  of  opinion,  as  to  the 
rightness  or  wrongness  of  opinions,  as  to  the 
rightness  or  wrongness  of  actions?  “We 
should,  not,  as  now,  find  one  man  or  nation 


54 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


considering  as  a virtue  what  another  regards 
as  a vice — Malays  glorying  in  the  piracy  ab- 
horred by  civilized  races — a Thug  regarding 
as  a religious  act  that  assassination  at  v/hich 
a European  shudders — a Russian  piquing 
himself  on  his  successful  trickery — a red  In- 
dian in  his  undying  revenge — things  which 
with  us  would  hardly  be  boasted  of. 

“Again,  if  this  moral  sense  exist  and 
possess  no  fixity,  gives  no  uniform  response, 
says  one  thing  in  Europe  and  another  in 
Asia — originates  different  notions  of  duty  in 
each  age,  each  race,  each  individual,  how 
can  it  afford  a safe  foundation  for  a system- 
atic morality?  What  can  be  more  absurd 
than  to  seek  a definite  rule  of  right  in  the 
answers  of  so  uncertain  an  authority?’’ 

Can  it  be  fairly  said,  my  reader,  that  such 
men  are  in  a position  to  judge  the  gambler, 
or  to  denounce  his  vocation?  May  not  the 
gamester  ask  of  this  sect:  By  what  authority 
do  you  pronounce  judgment,  “ out  of  hand,’’ 
upon  me  and  mine?  Where  is  your  standard 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


55 


— authentic,  determinative,  undeniable,  irre- 
futable? Am  I subject  to  the  dominion  of 
your  conscience?  In  my  opinion,  gaming  is 
not  a sin.  In  what  is  your  judgment  superior 
to  mine?  Moreover,  I defy  you  to  demon- 
strate a wager  is  wrong, se.  It  you  find  this 
impossible,  I am  free  to  repudiate  your  dog- 
matism. To  know,  also,  that  gaming  is 
not  prima  facie  sinful,  we  have  but  to  define 
it. 

The  lexicographers  define  a gamester  as 
“one  who  plays  for  money  or  other  stake;’’ 
and  gaming  “ to  be  the  use  of  cards,  dice, 
or  other  implement,  with  a view  to  win 
money,  or  other  thing,  wagered  upon  the 
issue  of  the  contest.’’ i Is  this  a description 
of  anything  forbidden  by  the  decalogue? 
Where,  in  the  old  or  new  testament,  is  a 
similar  transaction  denounced  as  a sin?  But, 
it  may  be  said,  perhaps,  the  foregoing  defin- 
ition does  not  suffice  for  moral  consider- 
ation : it  ignores  the  element  of  chance, 
which  enters  more  or  less  into  all  games. 


56 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


This  would  imply  that  it  is  immoial  to  invoke 
a fortuity.  Is  it? 

Here,  the  great  Jefferson  may  be  quoted 
with  propriety:  “ It  is  a common  idea  that 
games  of  chance  are  immoral.  But  what 
is  chance?  Nothing  happens  in  this  world 
without  a cause.  If  we  know  the  cause,  we 
do  not  call  it  chance,  but  if  we  do  not  know 
it,  we  say  it  was  produced  by  chance.  If 
we  see  a loaded  die  turn  its  lightest  side 
up,  we  know  the  cause,  and  that  it  is  not  an 
effect  produced  by  chance;  but  whatever  side 
an  unloaded  die  turns  up,  not  knowing  the 
cause,  we  say  it  is  the  effect  of  chance.  Yet, 
the  morality  of  the  thing  cannot  depend  on 
our  knowledge  or  ignorance  of  its  cause. 
Not  knowing  why  a particular  side  of  an 
unloaded  die  turns  up,  cannot  make  the  act 
of  throwing,  or  of  betting  on  it,  immoral. 
If  we  consider  games  of  chance  immoral, 
then  every  pursuit  of  human  industrj'  is  im- 
moral, for  there  is  not  a single  one  that  is 
not  subject  to  chance;  not  one,  wherein  you 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


57 


do  not  risk  a loss  for  the  chance  of  some 
gain.” 

In  “Paradise  Lost,”  Milton  declares: 

“Next  him,  high  arbiter, 

Chance  governs  all ! ” 

And  of  mankind  we  read  in  Ecclesiastes  that 
“time  and  chance  happeneth  to  them” — • 
mankind.  (9:11).  Among  the  Hebrews,  pro- 
perty was  divided  and  disputes  were  decided, 
“by  lot.”  The  custom  is  mentioned  by  Solo- 
mon, Matthew  and  Luke.  (Prov.  16:33;  Matt, 
27:35;  Luke  10. j Furthermore,  this  mode 
of  appeal  to  destiny  is  sanctioned,  yea,  even 
prescribed,  by  the  Bible.  According  to 
Leviticus,  Aaron  was  commanded  “ to  take 
the  two  goats,  and  present  them  before  the 
Lord,  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation.  And  Aaron  shall  cast  lots  upon 
the  two  goats;  one  lot  for  the  Lord  and  the 
other  lot  for  the  scape-goat.  And  Aaron 
shall  bring  the  goat  upon  which  the  Lord’s 
lot  fell,  and  offer  him  for  a sin  offering.  But 
the  goat  on  which  the  lot  fell  to  be  the 


58 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


scape-goat,  shall  be  presented  alive  before 
the  Lord,  to  make  an  atonement  with  him 
and  to  let  him  go  for  a scape-goat  into  the 
wilderness.”  (16:7,  8,  9.) 

Tims  was  chance  invested  with  the  sanctity 
of  a religious  observance. 

Moses  was  instructed  that  the  “ Promised 
Land  ” should  be  divided  among  the  Hebrews 
“by  lot.”  The  method  is  described  in  Num- 
bers: “ Notwithstanding,  the  land  shall  be 
divided  by  lot,  according  to  the  names  of 
the  tribes  of  their  fathers  shall  they  inherit. 
According  to  lot  shall  the  possession  thereof 
be  divided  between  many  and  few.”  This 
direction  was  followed  to  the  letter  by  “ Ele- 
azar,  the  priest,  and  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun, 
and  the  heads  of  the  fathers  of  the  tribes 
of  the  children  of  Israel;”  for  we  are  told 
in  Joshua,  that  “ By  lot  was  their  inheritance; 
as  the  Lord  commanded  by  the  hand  of 
Moses,  for  the  nine  tribes  and  for  the  half 
tribe.  (Josh  14:1,  2;  18:6.) 

Luck,  then,  decided  the  tenure  oj  the 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


59 


tribes  in  Canaa^i — a title  dictated  by  Div- 
mity. 

Joshua  determined,  by  lot,  that  it  was 
Achan,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  who  had  taken 
“the  accursed  thing”  and  thus  brought  upon 
Israel  the  disaster  at  Ai.  (Josh.  7:14.) 
During  the  great  battle  of  Michmash- 
Aijalon,  Saul  said  unto  the  Israelites: 
“Cursed  be  the  man  that  eateth  any  food 
until  evening,  that  I may  be  avenged  on  my 
enemies.” 

Unmindful  of  this  oath,  wild  honey  was 
eaten  by  his  son,  in  a moment  of  extreme 
hunger.  No  one  would  divulge  that  the 
king’s  adjuration  had  been  disregarded  by 
the  beloved  Jonathan.  “ Therefore,  Saul 
said  unto  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  give  a 
perfect  lot.  And  Saul  and  Jonathan  were 
taken:  but  the  people  escaped.  And  Saul 
said.  Cast  lots  between  me  and  Jonathan, 
my  son.  And  Jonathan  was  taken.”  (i  Sam. 
14:40,  42.) 

By  lot,  likewise,  the  question  of  “ mhiistry 


6o 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


and  apostlesJlip”  was  decided  against  Justus 
and  ui  pavor  op  Alatthias.  (Acts  i : 26.) 

Briefly,  if  the  Bible  is  a divine  production, 
how  can  appeals  to  chance  be  stigmatized 
as  vicious  or  irreligious?  Also,  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  chance,  or  casualty,  enters 
very  largely  into  every  department  of  human 
action.  Men  are  compelled  to  take  ventures 
every  day;  the  engineer  faces  them;  so  does 
the  sea  captain;  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  doctor,  the  surgeon,  the  lawyer  and  the 
banker.  A merchant  encounters  all  the 
risks  of  trade;  the  hostility  of  the  elements 
and  the  bankruptcy  of  others.  The  rains 
may  rot  or  the  drouths  destroy  the  crops 
of  the  farmer.  And  almost,  in  the  words  of 
Ben  Jonson,  throughout  the  world, 

‘ ‘All  human  business,  fortune  doth  command. 

Without  all  order,  and  with  her  blind  hand. 

She,  blind,  bestows  blind  gifts,  that  still  have  nurst. 
They  see  not  who  nor  how,  ” 

The  politician,  too,  might  say  with  Macbeth: 
“ If  chance  will  have  me  king,  why,  chance 
may  crown  me.”  War  is  a mighty  game 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


6l 


between  giants.  In  truth,  of  Napoleon  the 
poet  has  said: 

“ Whose  game  was  empires,  and  whose  stakes  were  thrones, 
Whose  table,  earth ; whose  dice,  were  human  bones.  ” 

Beyond  this,  even  our  laws  and  institu- 
tions appeal  to  chance.  In  the  United  States 
Senate,  whom,  respectively,  of  two  mem- 
bers— elected  at  the  same  time — shall  serve 
for  the  long  and  short  term,  is  decided  by 
lot.  The  law  recognizes  that  even  property 
may  be  thus  divided.  “ When  an  estate  is 
apportioned  into  three  parts,  and  one  part 
is  given  to  each  of  three  persons;  the  proper 
way  is  to  ascertain  each  one’s  part  by  draw- 
ing lots.”  Thus  is  the  rule  stated  by  Bouvier 
and  Wolff.  The  Illinois  Statutes,  for  the 
regulation  of  elections,  enact  that  “ when 
two  or  more  persons  receive  an  equal  and 
the  highest  number  of  votes  for  an  office 
to  be  filled  by  the  county  alone,  that  county 
clerk  shall  issue  a notice  to  such  persons 
of  such  tie  vote,  and  require  them  to  appear 
at  his  office,  on  a day  named  in  the  notice. 


62 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


within  ten  days  from  the  day  of  election, 
and  determine  by  lot  which  of  them  is  to 
be  declared  elected.  On  the  day  appointed 
the  clerk  and  other  canvassers  shall  attend, 
and  the  parties  interested  shall  appear  and 
determine  by  lot  which  of  them  is  to  be  de- 
declared  elected.”  Similar  laws  exist  in 
other  states. 

Some  moralists  admit  the  validity  of  a 
transaction,  notwithstanding  it  may  depend 
upon  chance.  They  will  concede  there  is 
no  intrinsic  wrong  in  any  species  of  game, 
unless  there  exists  an  inequality  of  chance 
or  skill.  Not  so,  thought  Paley,  the  Christian 
philosopher,  whose  name  is  a household 
word  for  purity,  zeal  and  power.  He  said: 
” What  some  say  of  this  kind  of  contract,  that 
one  side  ought  not  to  have  any  advantage 
over  the  other,  is  neither  practical  nor  true. 
This  would  require  perfect  equality  of  skill 
and  judgment,  which  is  seldom  to  be  met 
with.  I might  not  have  it  in  my  power  to 
play  with  fairness  a game  of  cards  once  in 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


63 


a twelvemonth,  if  I must  wait  till  I meet 
with  a person  whose  art,  skill  and  judgment 
are  neither  greater  nor  less  than  my  own. 
Nor  is  this  equality  requisite  to  the  justice 
of  the  contract.  One  man  may  give  to 
another  the  whole  of  the  stake  if  he  chooses, 
and  the  other  may  justly  accept  it  if  it  be 
given  him;  much  more,  therefore,  may  one 
give  another  an  advantage  in  the  chance 
of  winning  the  whole.  The  only  proper 
restriction  is,  that  neither  side  have  an  ad- 
vantage by  means  of  which  the  other  is  not 
aware.  The  same  distinction  holds  of  all 
transactions  and  proceedings  into  which 
chance  enters;  such  as  insurance,  and  specu- 
lations in  trade  or  in  stocks.” 

In  this  connection,  with  what  force  could 
be  quoted  the  sweet  Nazarene  in  His  parable 
of  the  vineyard  laborers:  “ Friend,  I do 
thee  no  wrong;  didst  thou  not  agree  with 
me  for  a penny?  Take  that  thine  is,  and 
go  thy  way;  I will  give  unto  this  last 
even  as  unto  thee.  Is  it  not  laivjul  Joi'  me 


64 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


to  do  what  I will  with  mine  own?  (Matt. 
20:  13,  14,  15.) 

Here  the  mathematicians  attempt  to  res- 
cue moral  philosophy.  They  would  dem- 
onstrate the  improbability  of  luck.  If  asked 
how  it  happened  that  a man  won  a hundred 
thousand  dollar  prize,  while  his  neighbor  drew 
a blank,  the  mathematician  might  tell  you  it 
was  chance;  that  there  was  a necessity  for  the 
prize  to  fall  somewhere,  and  that  he  who  had 
the  most  chances  was  the  most  likely  to  obtain 
it.  Such  caviling  could  be  dismissed  with  the 
answer:  You  acknowledge  the  necessity  of  a 
prize  falling  somewhere,  then  why  not  to  me. 
Surely  my  chances  are  as  good  as  my  neigh- 
bors’, perhaps  more  so.  It  may  be  ; and  what 
maybe  maybe  now.  “There  is  no  prerog- 
ative in  human  hours.”  “There  is  a tide  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  which  taken  at  the  flood, 
leads  on  to  fortune.” 

No  intelligent  gambler  is  a believer  in 
“ luck  ” as  a personal  qtiality.  He  recognizes 
the  phenomena  of  chance.  How  they  will 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


65 


operate  is  not  known  to  the  mathematician 
more  than  to  him  ; the  “ chances  ” may  result 
favorably  or  unfavorably  for  a gambler  ; the 
law  may  so  work  as  to  benefit  him,  or  it  may 
not.  Whether  “ chance  ” or  “ luck,”  is  imma- 
terial to  the  issue. 

But  seriously,  for  what  do  these  aspirants 
contend?  A method  of  reasoning  from  the 
happening  of  an  event  to  the  probabilities  of 
one  or  another  cause;  that  the  possible  combi- 
nations in  a pack  of  cards,  or  a handful  of 
dice,  may  be  computed,  even  when  the  ques- 
tion involves  the  chances  of  a thousand  dice, 
or  a thousand  throws  of  one  die.  In  its  very 
nature  this  is  a vain-glorious  pretension,  and 
upon  what  is  it  based  ? An  hypothesis  pre- 
senting the  necessity  of  one  or  another  out  of 
a certain  number  of  consequences.  In  other 
words,  given  an  event  as  having  happened, 
and  which  might  have  been  the  consequence 
of  either  of  several  causes,  or  explicable  by 
either  of  several  hypotheses,  the  probabilities 
can  be  i up  erred. 


66 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


In  this  way  is  the  philosophy  of  suppos- 
ition substituted  for  that  of  caprice.  We 
are  asked  by  the  mathematician,  at  the  very 
outset,  to  assume  something  he  has  not 
proved,  and  which  is  not  susceptible  of  proof. 
We  are  required  to  take  for  granted  the 
imaginary  premises  upon  which  his  argu- 
ment depends.  Is  this  not  the  acme  of  in- 
tellectual audacity?  But  having  yielded  his 
antecedent  proposition,  what  is  the  result? 
A bare  probability — a mere  likelihood  of  the 
occurrence  of  any  event. 

So  much  for  the  boasted  “ Doctrine  of 
Chances.”  Besides,  I assert  that  every  pre- 
mise of  the  mathematician  has  been  refuted 
by  my  experience  as  a gamester.  In  the 
proper  place,  I could  disprove  his  every 
theory  with  a fact  For  example:  De 
Morgan  and  Proctor  tell  us  that  it  is  not 
probable  seven  could  be  thrown  ten  succes- 
sive times,  with  a pair  of  dice.  We  are  told, 
on  good  authority,  that  in  1813,  a Mr.  Ogden 
wagered  1,000  guineas  that  his  opponent 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  67 

would  not  perform  this  feat.  That  gentle- 
man threw  seven  7iine  times  running. 

However,  the  mathematicians  are  not  con- 
cerned with  the  right  or  wrong  of  play  for 
money.  They  seek  to  demonstrate  the  in- 
equalities of  chance,  hoping  thus  to  dissuade 
humanity  from  its  pursuit.  Their  efforts  are 
idle.  “ The  proverb  which  advises  us  to 
throw  a sprat  to  catch  a whale,  shows  that 
mankind  consider  a chance  of  a gain  to  be 
a benefit  for  which  it  is  worth  while  to  give 
up  a proportionate  certainty.”  These  gentle- 
men have  extended  their  conjectures  to  the 
risks  of  loss  or  gain  in  general  commerce; 
the  probable  continuity  of  life  and  duration 
of  marriage;  the  contingencies  in  political 
results  and  the  verdicts  of  juries;  the  distri- 
butions of  sex  in  births,  and  even  the  proba- 
bility of  error  in  any  opinion  that  may  be 
generally  received.  In  fact,  should  their 
guesses  be  heeded  by  the  world,  enterprise 
and  hope  would  depart. 

Another  class  of  moralizers  reject  and 


68 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


deride  the  idea  of  “innate  notions.”  Truth, 
they  maintain,  is  not  to  be  found  in  worn 
out  abstractions  and  moral  senses,  which  are 
the  weak  reproductions  of  material  organisms. 
In  ethics,  if  they  are  to  be  followed,  we  must 
set  out  with  the  convictions  that  our  materials 
are  relative  and  not  absolute,  and  that  our 
highest  moral  conceptions  must  partake  of 
the  same  character.  As  stated  by  Posnett, 
systems  of  ethics,  more  or  less  perfect  in 
their  day,  have  vanished  in  the  progress  of 
society  and  mind.  Systems  of  ethics,  whether 
we  see  or  care  to  see  it,  are  gliding  from 
amongst  us  at  this  moment,  while  others, 
“ with  strange  faces  are  growing  familiar 
oy  the  slowness  of  their  approach.” 

To  illustrate  from  Chenebix ; Nothing 
can  appear  more  definite  than  virtue ; yet,  in 
Asia,  the  term  may  denote  submission;  in 
Europe  and  America,  resistance;  to  Mussul- 
mans war;  to  Christians,  peace.  Honor,  too, 
which  its  votaries  describe  as  one  and  in- 
corruptible, assumes  various  significations. 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


69 


In  some  countries  it  prescribes  revenge  for 
an  injury  received;  in  others,  forgiveness. 
Here,  the  violation  of  female  chastity  is  a 
disgrace,  elsewhere  it  is  a duty.  To  a 
Mussulman  the  eating  of  pork  is  “ vile  and 
unclean,  fills  his  soul  with  aversion,  repug- 
nance, disgust.  To  this  habit  their  antipathy 
is  deep  and  intuitive.  To  the  natives  of 
Western  India,  eating  beef  is  sacrilegious 
and  revolting.  In  Spain,  any  other  worship 
than  that  established  by  the  Catholic  church 
is  impious  and  in  the  highest  degree  offen- 
sive to  God.  The  people  of  all  Southern 
Europe  regard  a married  clergy  as  irreligious, 
indecent,  unchaste,  gross  and  disgusting. 
Wherever  the  Puritans  have  been  sufficiently 
powerful  they  have  endeavored  to  put  down 
all  public,  and  nearly  all  private  amusements: 
music,  dancing,  the  theatre  and  public  games.” 

This  denomination,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  also  urge  upon  mankind  what,  in  their 
opinion,  is  the  ” true  moral  rule” — the  correct 
standard  of  right.  It  is  that  which  is  estab- 


70 


WHAT  IS  TRUTPI? 


lished  by  authority,  custom,  or  general  con- 
sent. A variable  and  doubtful  criterion, 
this,  one  would  naturally  suppose.  How 
severely  has  it  been  treated  by  Spencer  and 
Carpenter.  Right  and  wrong  are  not  essenti- 
ally different.  All  moral  distinctions  are  a 
matter  of  arbitrary  establishment  by  the 
“ powers  that  be.”  That  which  is  statutory’, 
customary,  fashionable,  or  generally  habitual, 
is  fit  and  proper.  Conduct  is  purely  a ques- 
tion of  majority  and  might.  Place  gambling 
in  the  ascendant  to-morrow  and  it  would  be 
just;  or,  as  the  major  part  of  humanity, 
gamesters  would  be  respectable;  for  an 
opinion  commonly  accepted  is  the  correct 
opinion.  With  this  as  a guide,  can  the  state 
hold  the  gamester  reprobate? 

Society  keeps  changing  its  sentiments 
with  the  centuries.  Absolutely,  we  can  never 
know  when  it  is  right  or  when  it  is  wrong. 
The  outlaw  of  one  era  is  the  idol  of  another. 
Servetus  was  immolated  by  the  Calvinists, 
to-day  he  is  a martyr  to  conscience.  Bruno 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


71 


was  burned  as  a heretic,  now  he  is  the  hero 
of  philosophy  and  science. 

Galileo  and  Roger  Bacon  were  once  exe- 
crated by  the  church — their  bones  lie  in 
unknown  and  unhonored  graves.  We  regard 
them  as  brave  pioneers  of  human  thought. 
The  formerly  despised  and  hunted  Christians 
are  become  the  greatest  power  on  earth. 
The  Jew  money-lender  of  the  “dark  ages’’ 
(whom  such  as  Front-de-Bceuf  once  tortured 
with  impunity)  is  the  Rothschild  of  our 
century — “ the  guest  of  princes  and  the  in- 
stigator of  commercial  wars.”  Shylock  is 
now  an  influential  and  courted  capitalist. 
“ All  the  glories  of  Alexander  do  not  condone, 
in  our  eyes,  for  his  cruelty  in  crucifying  the 
brave  defenders  of  Tyre,  by  thousands,  along 
the  sea-shore;  and  if  Solomon,  with  his 
thousand  wives  and  concubines,  were  to  ap- 
pear in  London  or  New  York  to-morrow, 
even  the  most  frivolous  circles  would  be 
shocked,  and  Brigham  Young,  by  contrast, 
seem  a domestic  model.” 


72 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


From  Caesar  we  learn  that  the  Suevi  held 
their  lands  in  common;  that  private  property 
in  the  soil  did  not  obtain  with  the  Gauls 
and  Germans.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
North  American  Indians  and  some  of  the 
Pacific  Islanders.  It  is  conceded,  moreover, 
that  communistic  principles  were  generally 
prevalent  in  the  earliest  ages  of  the  world. 
Then,  any  attempt  at  exclusive  individual 
possession  of  land  or  chattel  would  have  been 
deemed  a theft. 

The  mediaeval  ideal  was  an  ascetic  and 
monastic  life.  To-day,  millions  regard  such 
a course  as  unwise,  if  not  wicked.  Poverty, 
heretofore  esteemed  as  the  badge  of  honor 
and  dignity,  is  by  our  era  adjudged  offensive. 
Nomadism  prevailed  in  a former  age.  Now 
gypsies  and  tramps  are  the  outcasts  of  society. 
Regarding  marriage,  public  opinion  has  varied 
through  all  phases,  without  attaining  finalit}'. 
In  earliest  times  how  indiscriminate  is  the 
tie — the  monstrous  relation  of  brother  and 
sister  being  the  rule,  rather  than  the  excep- 


WHA'I'  IS  TRUTH? 


73 


tion.  Polygamy  prevails  with  one  people 
and  polyandry  among  another.  In  India 
and  the  Orient  a wife  is  hidden  from  the 
dearest  friend,  while  in  Africa  a chief  will 
put  his  mate  to  bed  with  a guest.  In  Japan 
young  women,  even  of  good  birth,  “ are  free 
in  their  intercourse  with  men,  till  they  are 
married;  at  Paris  they  are  free  after.” 

In  ancient  Greece  and  Rome,  again,  mar- 
riage was  not  the  highest  conception,  and 
largely  “ a matter  of  convenience  and  house- 
keeping.” Wives  were  little,  if  any  better, 
than  slaves.  The  class  of  women  known  as 
Hetairai  (concubines  and  mistresses)  were 
openly  honored  and  trusted  by  both  political 
and  social  leaders.  The  name  of  Aspasia 
is  closely  associated  with  that  of  Pericles. 
Theodota  was  the  intimate  of  Socrates. 
Diotima  has  been  immortalized  in  the 
“ Symposium  ” of  Plato. 

The  splendid  ideal  of  our  century  is  the 
monogamic  state  — ‘‘the  great  theme  of 
romantic  literature,  and  the  climax  of  a 


74 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


myriad  novels  and  poems.”  In  classic  Greece 
the  idealistic  model  was  male  friendship — 
comradeship.  We  have  its  type  in  the  heroic 
figures  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogiton.  The 
Theban  Legion,  or  “Sacred  Band,”  exempli- 
fied the  principle.  No  man  might  enter 
without  his  lover.  Although  annihilated  at 
the  battle  of  Chaeronsea,  it  was  never  van- 
quished. The  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome  illuminate  this  exalted  sentiment. 
The  writings  of  Pliny  the  younger,  Cicero 
and  Lucian,  are  worthy  of  especial  mention. 
Many  sweet  and  noble  friendships  are  em- 
balmed in  the  poetry  of  Hellas  and  Latium; 
Demetrius  and  Antiphilus ; Damon  and 
Pythias;  Phocion  and  Nicoles;  Glaucus  and 
Diomedes;  Philades  and  Orestes;  Cicero  and 
Atticus;  Socrates  and  Alcibiades;  Lucilius 
and  Brutus;  Tiberius  Gracchus  and  Blossius; 
Gains  Gracchus  and  Licinus. 

Suicide  was  not  thought  unworthy  by  the 
ancients.  It  was  resorted  to  by  Anthony, 
Brutus,  Cassius,  Cato,  and  Zeno.  To-day, 


V/HAT  IS  TRUTH? 


75 


the  attempt  is  a crime,  and  its  consummation 
a disgrace.  In  Europe  and  America  it  is 
felo-de-se.  Infanticide  is  common  in  many 
parts  of  Asia  and  Africa.  To-day  the  feudal 
baron  would  be  adjudged  a freebooter;  the 
knight-errant  a brawling  vagabond.  A nine- 
teenth century  man  may  beat  his  wife  within 
an  inch  of  her  life,  and  get  but  three  months. 
For  stealing  a suit  of  clothes  he  would 
be  “sent  up”  for  years.  So  “gambling 
on  ’change  is  now  respectable  enough,  but 
pitch  and  toss  for  halfpence  is  low,  and  must 
be  dealt  with  by  the  police.  We  know  that 
when  questions  connected  with  life  contin- 
gencies were  first  considered,  it  was  regarded 
as  most  deliberate  gambling  to  be  in  any 
way  concerned  in  buying  or  selling  such 
articles  as  annuities,  or  any  interests  depend- 
ing upon  them.”  The  age  boasts  of  an 
advance  in  the  humanities;  and  yet,  public 
opinion  permits  extravagance  and  selfishness 
in  the  rich  while  the  poor  are  starving.  Our 
educated  classes,  generally,  approve  the  vivi- 


76 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


section  of  animals.  In  ancient  Egypt  it  would 
have  been  stigmatized  as  the  most  abomin- 
able of  crimes. 

From  age  to  age,  likewise,  law  represents 
the  code  of  the  dominant  or  ruling  class — at 
all  times  only  valid  because  it  is  the  code 
of  those  in  power.  How  often  used  by 
“authority”  for  selfish  purposes,  may  be  read 
on  every  page  of  history.  Monarchy,  absolute 
or  limited,  is  a synonym  for  injustice.  Feudal- 
ism is  another  term  for  murder,  rapine  and 
extortion.  In  Spain,  the  lands  of  nobles 
were  long  exempted  from  direct  taxation. 
For  centuries  the  Hungarian  turnpikes  were 
free  to  the  aristocracy.  Prior  to  the  revol- 
ution in  France,  all  burdens  of  state  devolved 
upon  the  lower  classes.  Fess  than  two 
centuries  ago  Scotch  lairds  exported  their 
peasantry  into  slavery.  Students  will  recall 
the  “Black  Act”  of  George  I.,  and  the 
“Inclosure  Faws”  of  England.  Until  quite 
recently,  slavery  existed  in  Europe  and 
America;  nor  has  the  institution  wholl}"  dis- 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


77 


appeared  from  the  earth.  Legislation  is 
mainly  in  the  interest  of  the  wealthy  and 
powerful.  Congress  and  legislatures  are 
making  the  rich  richer,  and  the  poor  poorer. 
Government  is  largely  devoted  to  the  creation 
and  upholding  of  corporations,  trusts,  mon- 
opolies, subsidies  and  extortionate  tariffs. 
What  care  the  politicians  for  manhood  ? 
Wealth  is  their  God. 

“ Let  your  rule  be  the  greatest  happiness 
to  the  greatest  number,”  interposes  another 
authority.  But  are  men  agreed  in  their 
definition  of  “greatest  happiness?”  Dif- 
ferent notions  of  it  are  entertained  in  all 
ages,  amongst  every  people,  by  each  class. 
“To  the  wandering  gypsy  a home  is  tiresome, 
whilst  a Swiss  is  miserable  without  one.  Pro- 
gress is  necessary  to  the  Anglo-Saxons ; on 
the  other  hand,  the  Esquimaux  are  content 
in  their  squalid  poverty,  have  no  latent 
wants,  and  are  still  what  they  were  in  the 
days  of  Tacitus.  An  Irishman  delights  in 
a row,  a Chinaman  in  ceremonies  and  pagean- 


78 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


try,  and  the  usually  apathetic  Javanese  gets 
vociferously  enthusiastic  over  a cock-fight. 
The  heaven  of  the  Hebrew  is  a city  of  gold 
and  precious  stones,  with  an  abundance  of 
corn  and  wine;  that  of  the  Turk,  a harem 
peopled  by  Houris;  that  of  the  American 
Indian,  a happy  hunting-ground;  in  the  Norse 
paradise  there  were  to  be  daily  battles,  with 
magical  healing  of  wounds.  It  was,  seem- 
ingly, the  opinion  of  Lycurgus,  that  perfect 
physical  development  was  the  chief  essential 
to  human  felicity;  Plotinus,  on  the  contrary, 
was  so  purely  ideal  in  his  aspirations  as  to 
be  ashamed  of  his  body.  To  a miserly 
Elwes,  the  hoarding  of  money  was  the  only 
enjoyment  of  life;  but  the  philanthropic  Day 
could  find  no  pleasurable  employment,  save 
in  its  distribution.” 

Francis,  Duke  of  La  Rochefoucault, 
likened  the  soul  of  man  unto  a medal,  so 
constructed  that  it  may  represent  either  a 
saint  or  a devil.  Montaigne,  also,  said  the 
soul  of  man  was  double-faced;  the  inner 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


79 


beamed  upon  self-love,  while  the  outer  wore 
a mask.  Voltaire  was  a scoffer:  a master 
of  satire,  who  ridiculed  without  mercy  every 
human  weakness.  In  “Zadig”  and  “ Micro- 
megas”  he  mocked  the  ignorance  and  self- 
conceit  of  mankind.  His  “ Memnon,”  the 
‘ Wise  Memnon,”  who,  in  the  morning,  fore- 
swore all  women,  made  a vow  of  temperance, 
renounced  gaming  and  quarreling,  and  deter- 
mined never  to  be  seen  at  court,  was,  before 
the  night  of  the  same  day,  cheated  and 
robbed  by  a female,  got  drunk,  gamed, 
quarreled  with  his  most  intimate  friend,  and 
made  a visit  to  court,  where  everyone  laughed 
at  him.  The  moral  of  ‘‘Candide,  or  the 
Optimist,”  is,  as  interpreted  by  Smollett, 
that  nothing  is  more  absurd  than  the  exercise 
of  human  reason;  that  nothing  is  more  futile 
and  frivolous  than  the  cultivation  of  phil- 
osophy ; that  mankind  are  savages,  who 
devour  one  another.  This  is  cynicism,  pure 
and  simple.  I cannot  endure  a creed  so 
ghastly:  a philosophy  that  suspects  Socrates 


So 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


of  incontinence,  charges  Epicurus  with  prodi- 
gality, accuses  Aristotle  of  covetousness,  and 
can  say  of  Seneca  that  “ he  had  but  the  single 
virtue  of  concealing  his  vices.”  Horace  took 
a more  charitable  view  of  the  moral  philoso- 
phers, and  ascribed  their  weakness  to  inability 
rather  than  hypocrisy.  The  poet  says  that 
men  “ upon  the  stage  of  this  world  are  like 
a company  of  travelers  whom  night  has  sur- 
prised as  they  are  passing  through  a forest; 
they  walk  on,  relying  upon  the  guide,  who 
immediately  misleads  them  through  ignor- 
ance. All  of  them  use  what  care  they  can 
to  find  the  beaten  path  again ; everj^one 
takes  a different  path,  and  is  in  good  hopes 
his  is  the  best;  the  more  they  fill  themselves 
with  these  vain  imaginations  the  farther 
they  wander;  but  though  they  wander  a dif- 
ferent way,  yet  it  proceeds  from  one  and 
the  same  cause;  ’tis  the  guide  that  misled 
them,  and  the  obscurity  of  the  night  hinders 
them  from  recovering  the  right  road.” 

In  truth,  the  mind  of  man,  unaided  by 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


Divine  light,  is  not  able  to  determine  what 
is  absolutely  right  or  absolutely  wrong.  In 
the  realm  of  morals,  man  is  to  be  guided 
only  by  the  decrees  of  God,  if  known.  For 
those  who  recognize  the  Bible  as  His  word, 
the  way  is  clear.  Aside  from  this,  the  path 
is  dark  and  uncertain.  But  nowhere  in 
either  the  Old  or  New  Testament,  is  gambling 
forbidden.  Not  a word  did  Moses  or  Jesus 
utter  against  it,  as  a general  principle,  or 
in  any  of  its  particular  forms.  What  is  com- 
manded by  God  is  our  only  test  of  right 
and  wrong.  Theology  is  of  man,  and  yet 
it  is  a fact  that  gambling,  in  itself,  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  profession  of  any  creed 
in  Christendom.  The  ablest  theologian  can- 
not successfully  challenge  this  proposition. 

For  the  sake  of  argument,  heretofore,  I 
have  granted  the  moral  freedom  of  man. 
The  fact  is,  I deny  his  “ liberty,”  save  in  the 
most  restricted  sense.  I am  convinced  every 
action  is  determined  by  the  resultant  force 
of  conflicting  motives.  However,  the  possible 


82 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


autonomy  of  man  is  not  necessary  to  a con 
sideration  of  what  it  is  right  or  best  to  do. 
It  is  only  when  we  ask  about  the  conduct  of 
man,  in  his  relation  to  the  law,  that  it  is 
important  to  know  whether  he  could  have 
done  otherwise.  I reserve  the  topic  for  a 
subsequent  chapter. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  certain  conclusions  are 
obvious  to  the  impartial  observer.  It  is 
very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  draw  a 
strict  boundary  between  the  virtues  and  vices. 
Courage  should  not  be  carried  to  the  point 
of  rashness.  Timidity  is  the  abuse  of  pru- 
dence. Generosity  can  degenerate  into  im- 
providence. Reverence  might  merge  into 
credulity  and  superstition.  Arrogance  is  the 
extreme  of  self-respect.  Chastity  is  over- 
done by  the  monastic.  Some  writers,  in  fact, 
deny  a fixed  line  between  the  virtuous  and 
vicious  passions;  this  class  boldly  maintain 
a place  for  both  vices  and  virtues.  Hatred 
may  be  just  and  anger  magnificent.  Although 
out  of  place  in  a drawing-room,  obstinacy  is 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH?  83 

a virtue  on  the  field  of  battle.  Love  is  divine 
and  lust  monstrous.  Are  they  not  yoke- 
fellows? Reformers,  so  called,  are  impossible 
without  stupid  candor  and  impassive  blunt- 
ness. Timidity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the 
defect  of  a sensitive  temperament.  Sensu- 
ality underlies  the  domain  of  art,  painting, 
sculpture  and  music. 

This  is  suggested  by  Plato  in  the  “ Phsc- 
drus” — an  allegory  of  the  soul,  wherein  the 
spirit  of  man  is  depicted  as  a chariot  to  which 
are  attached  a white  and  black  horse.  The 
first  typifies  our  higher  and  the  latter  our 
lower  passions. 

Mr.  Lecky  writes  in  his  “ History  of 
Morals,”  that  in  society  certain  defects 
necessarily  accompany  certain  excellencies 
of  character.  He  remarks,  “ Had  the  Irish 
peasants  been  less  chaste  they  would  have 
been  more  prosperous.”  ” Habitual  liars  and 
habitual  cheats  have  been  industrious,  amiable 
and  prudent.”  “Civilization  is  not  favorable 
to  self-sacrifice,  reverence,  enthusiasm  or 


84 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


chastity.”  He  declares  of  the  gambling- 
table,  ” that  it  fosters  a moral  nerve  and 
calmness  scarcely  exhibited  in  equal  perfec- 
tion in  any  other  sphere — a fact  which  Bret 
Harte  has  finely  illustrated  in  his  character 
of  Mr.  John  Oakhurst,  in  the  ‘ Outcasts  of 
Poker  Flat.’  ” 

This  thought  is  boldly  illustrated  by 
Mandeville,  in  his  “ F'able  of  the  Bees:” 

“These  were  called  knaves,  but,  bar  the  name, 

The  grave  industrious  were  the  same: 

All  trades  and  places  knew  some  cheat, 

No  calling  was  without  deceit. 

The  root  of  evil,  avarice. 

That  damn’d,  ill-natured,  baneful  vice, 

Was  slave  to  prodigality, 

That  noble  sin;  whilst  luxury 
Employed  a million  of  the  poor, 

And  odious  pride  a million  more : 

Envy,  itself,  and  vanity 
Were  ministers  of  iudustiy, 

Their  darling  folly,  fickleness, 

In  diet,  furniture  and  dress, 

That  strange,  ridiculous  vice,  was  made 
The  very  wheel  that  turned  the  trade.” 


The  author  of  this  unique  production 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


85 


announced  that  his  main  design  was  to  in- 
dicate the  impossibility  of  enjoying  all  the 
most  elegant  comforts  of  life  “ that  are  to 
be  met  with  in  an  industrious,  wealthy  and 
powerful  nation,  and  at  the  same  time  be 
blessed  with  all  the  virtue  and  innocence 
that  can  be  wished  for  in  a golden  age; 
from  thence  to  expose  the  folly  and  unreason- 
ableness of  those  that,  desirous  of  being  an 
opulent  and  flourishing  people,  are  wonder- 
fully greedy  after  all  the  benefits  they  can 
receive  as  such,  are  yet  always  murmuring 
against  those  vices  and  inconveniences,  that 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  present 
day,  have  been  inseparable  from  all  the 
kingdoms  and  states  that  ever  were  formed 
for  strength,  riches  and  politeness.” 

“To  do  this,  I first  slightly  touch  upon 
some  of  the  faults  and  corruptions  the  several 
professions  and  callings  are  generally  charged 
with.  After  that  I show  that  those  very 
vices  of  every  particular  person,  by  skillful 
management,  were  made  subservient  to  the 


86 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


grandeur*  and  worldly  happiness  of  the  whole. 
Lastly,  by  setting  forth  what  of  necessity 
must  be  the  consequence  of  general  honesty, 
virtue,  innocence,  content  and  temperance, 
I demonstrate  that  if  mankind  could  be  cured 
of  the  failings  they  are  naturally  guilty  of, 
they  would  cease  to  be  capable  of  being 
raised  into  such  vast,  potent,  and  polite 
societies,  as  they  have  been  under  the  several 
commonwealths  and  monarchies  that  have 
flourished  since  creation.” 

Not  yet,  then,  have  we  found  the  human 
standard  by  which  the  gambler  is  to  be 
denounced. 

Gamblers  are  accused  of  avarice,  and  an 
inordinate  desire  for  wealth.  As  a rule, 
the  gamester  is  not  penurious.  A miserly 
or  covetous  grasp  of  money  is  inconsistent 
with  his  vocation.  Concede  the  accusation, 
and  is  he  alone?  Is  he  more  greedy  of 
gain  than  other  men?  History  refutes  the 
charge.  Money  is  the  god  of  the  world. 
Get  enormous  wealth  is  the  cry,  no  matter 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


87 


how;  no  matter  how  many  impoverished 
widows  and  squalid  orphans  are  crying  out 
to  heaven,  day  and  night,  against  you;  and 
such  slavish  adulation  as  the  world  knows 
not  beside  are  yours.  The  passion  for 
wealth  increases  gradually,  as  its  end  is 
achieved,  the  world  over.  Its  effects  are 
manifest  wherever  men  strive  for  gold. 

“Gold!  gold!  gold!  gold! 

Br  ight  and  yellow,  hard  and  cold, 

Molten,  graven,  hammered,  rolled; 

Heavy  to  get,  and  light  to  hold ; 

Hoarded,  bartered,  bought  and  sold ; 

Stolen,  borrowed,  squandered,  doled; 

Spurned  by  the  young,  but  hugged  by  the  old 
To  the  very  verge  of  the  church  yard  mould. 

Price  of  many  a crime  untold ; 

Gold!  gold!  gold!  gold!” — Thomas  Hood. 


The  morale  of  gambling  is  not  to  be 
determined  by  political  economy,  which  is 
not  a part  of  moral  philosophy.  It  is 
not  founded  on  the  imperations  of  duty, 
but  upon  the  adequate  footing  of  desirable- 
ness of  self-interest.  In  the  language  of 
Prof.  Perry:  “ One  word  circumscribes  the 


88 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


field  of  morals,  ought.  One  word  defines 
the  field  of  economy,  expediency.”  So  far 
as  it  is  a science,  political  economy  is  cold 
and  selfish;  “budded  on  monopoly  values.” 
Judged  by  such  a standard,  gambling  would 
be  right,  if  expedient. 

Yes,  but  is  not  gambling  a destructive 
luxury?  Is  it  not  a wasteful  expenditure 
of  money?  I answer,  what  is  luxury,  and 
is  it  always  an  evil?  Roscher  well  says: 
“ The  idea  conveyed  by  the  word  is  an 
essentially  relative  one.”  Every  individual 
calls  all  expenditure  with  which  he  chooses 
to  dispense,  a luxury.  The  same  is  true  of 
every  age  and  nation.  “ ’Tis  a word  with- 
out any  specific  idea,”  wrote  Voltaire,  “much 
such  another  expression  as  when  we  say 
Eastern  and  Western  hemispheres:  in  fact, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  East  and  West; 
there  is  no  fixed  point  where  the  earth 
rises  and  sets;  or,  if  you  will,  every  point 
on  it  is,  at  the  same  time.  East  and  West. 
It  is  the  same  with  regard  to  luxury;  for 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


89 


either  there  is  no  such  thing,  or  else  it  is 
in  all  places  alike.  . . . Do  we  under- 

stand by  luxury  the  expense  of  an  opulent 
person?  Must  he,  then,  live  like  the  poor, 
he  whose  profusion,  alone,  is  sufficient  to 
maintain  the  poor?  Expensiveness  should 
be  the  thermometer  of  a private  person’s 
fortune,  as  general  luxury  is  the  infallible 
mark  of  a powerful  and  flourishing  empire. 
. . . Money  is  made  for  circulation.  He 

who  hoards  it  is  a bad  citizen,  and  even 
a bad  economist.  It  is  by  dissipating  it 
we  render  ourselves  useful  to  our  country 
and  ourselves.”  David  Hume  also  thought 
the  word  of  uncertain  signification.  He 
said:  “The  bound  between  virtue  and  vice 
cannot  liere  be  exactly  fixed,  more  than 
in  other  moral  subjects.  To  imagine  that 
the  gratification  of  any  sense,  or  the 
indulging  of  any  delicacy,  is  of  itself  a 
vice,  can  never  enter  into  a head  that  is 
not  disordered  by  the  frenzies  of  enthusi- 
asm. These  indulgences  are  only  vices. 


go  WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 

when  they  are  pursued  at  the  expense  of 
some  virtue,  as  liberality  of  charity;  in 
like  manner  as  they  are  follies,  when  a 
man  ruins  his  fortune  and  reduces  himself 
to  want  and  beggary.”  Again,  William 
Roscher,  the  political  economist,  was  of 
opinion  that  “ prodigality  is  less  odious 
than  avarice;  less  irreconcilable  with  certain 
virtues;”  and  that  ‘‘prodigality,  directly  or 
indirectly,  increases  the  demand  for  com- 
modities.” We  know  the  Epicureans  and 
Stoics  were  reproached  with  being  bad 
citizens,  because  their  moderation  was  a 
hindrance  to  trade.  Gambling  is  no  more 
a luxury  than  many  other  practices  of  man- 
kind. Some  persons  may  prefer  it  as  a 
pastime  to  any  other  form  of  luxury.  Who 
is  to  decide  a question  of  taste  and  ex- 
pense but  the  individual  concerned?  One 
man  indulges  lavishly  in  pictures,  books, 
and  clothes  ; another  is  prodigal  in  the 
matter  of  tobacco  and  liquors;  a third  de- 
lights in  the  excitement  of  chance.  All 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


91 


these  inclinations  are  luxurious.  Which  is 
preferable  to  each,  is  not  for  society  to  de- 
termine in  one  case,  more  than  in  the 
others.  In  a word,  the  phases  of  luxury 
are  so  variable  and  extensive  that  it  is 
equally  unjust  and  impracticable  for  the 
state  to  discriminate  unfavorably. 

The  gambler  is  said  to  be  idle  and  non- 
productive: that  a quid  pro  quo  is  not  given 
for  what  he  receives.  What  is  meant  here 
by  idleness  and  non-production?  Does  it 
signify  that  labor  is  the  proper  basis  of  ex- 
changeable value:  the  only  just  source  of 
what  is  called  wealth?  If  so,  the  condem- 
nation includes  all  who  obtain  wealth  with- 
out working  for  it.  Suppose  it  be  admitted 
that  service  is  the  one  equitable  title  to  pro- 
perty. What,  then,  of  assumed  rights,  in 
the  form  of  profits,  dividends,  rent  and 
interest?  If  true  wealth  is  the  outcome  of 
physical  labor,  are  not  banker,  broker,  middle- 
man, landlord,  capitalist,  gentleman  of  leis- 
ure and  gambler  on  the  same  footing. 


92 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


Bishop  Jewel  once  said:  “If  I lend  ^loo, 
and  for  it  covenant  to  receive  ^105,  or  any 
other  sum  greater  than  was  the  sum  I did 
lend,  this  is  that  we  call  usury:  such  a kind 
of  bargaining  as  no  good  man,  or  godly 
man,  ever  used.’’  Many  contend  that  in- 
terest contributes  nothing  to  the  support  of 
society,  but  is  a tax  on  labor.  Those  who 
receive  it  are  said  to  be  extortioners  who 
live  on  the  gains  of  other  people.  Christ, 
Buddha,  Zoroaster,  and  Mahomet  all  put 
usury  in  the  category  of  forbidden  sins. 

It  is  discountenanced  by  Ezekiel,  Moses, 
David,  Aristotle,  Cato,  St.  Basil,  Masse, 
Bacon,  Buxton,  Dr.  Wilson  and  Fenton. 
Ricardo,  the  great  economist,  was  of  the 
opinion  that  rent  is  not  a creation  of  wealth, 
and  adds  nothing  to  the  necessaries,  con- 
veniences and  enjoyments  of  society.  Adam 
Smith,  the  father  of  political  econom}-,  con- 
sidered rent  as  a monopoly  price  paid  for 
the  use  of  land.  Were  this  true,  the  owner 
of  a house,  when  it  had  paid  for  itself,  could 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


93 


rightfully  charge  for  its  use,  the  cost  of  his 
labor  in  transferring  it  to  you,  and  the 
amount  of  wear  and  tear. 

It  is  said  of  the  gambler  that  he  is  not 
a man  of  equivalents.  But,  if  wealth  is  to 
be  a question  of  exact  equality  in  values 
and  labor,  then  must  business  generally  be 
condemned.  The  great  legists,  Pomponius 
and  Paulus,  unblushingly  said,  that  “ In  buy- 
ing and  selling,  a man  has  a natural  right 
to  purchase  for  a small  price  what  is  really 
more  valuable,  and  to  sell  at  a high  price 
what  is  less  valuable,  and  for  each  to  over- 
reach the  other.”  Harsh  as  this  may  seem, 
it  but  voiced  the  principles  of  trade  in 
every  age  of  the  world.  “Trade  is  war,” 
said  the  ancient  proverb;  “and  as  a nail 
between  the  stone  joints,  so  does  sin  stick 
fast  between  buying  and  selling.”  Business 
is  advantage-taking  erected  into  a system. 
Get  as  much  more  than  you  give  as  is  pos- 
sible. A thing  is  worth  what  it  will  bring. 
You  may  rightfully  take  from  another  what 


94 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


he  is  compelled  to  yield.  Exchange  is  noc 
a rendering  of  equivalent  for  equivalent; 
but  an  effort  to  get  the  largest  possible 
amount  of  another’s  property,  or  services, 
for  the  least  possible  return.  In  business, 
justice  and  mercy  are  daily  displaced  by  ex- 
tortion and  mastership  ; “ the  producing 

classes  are  vassal  to  the  speculating  classes; 
the  creators  of  wealth  to  its  stealthy  pos- 
sessors.” 

The  Christian  Fathers  deprecated  trade. 
“To  seek  to  enrich  one’s  self  is  in  itself 
unjust,”  said  Clement;  “since  it  aims  at  ap- 
propriating an  unfair  share  of  what  was  in- 
tended for  the  common  use  of  men.”  “If 
covetousness  is  removed,”  argued  Tertullian, 
“ there  is  no  reason  for  gain,  and,  if  there 
is  no  reason  for  gain,  there  is  no  need  of 
trade.”  Jerome  taught  that  “ as  the  trader 
did  not  himself  add  to  the  value  of  his 
wares,  therefore,  if  he  gained  more  for  them 
than  he  paid,  his  gain  must  be  another’s 
loss.”  To  Augustine,  “business  in  itself  is 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


95 


an  evil,  for  it  turns  men  from  seeking  true 
rest,  which  is  God.”  Aquinas  decided  “that 
to  buy  a thing  for  less,  or  sell  a thing  for 
more  than  its  value  is,  in  itself,  unallowable 
and  unjust,” 

It  has  been  estimated  by  Bastiat,  Karl 
Marx  and  Nordau,  that  laborers  are  un- 
justly deprived  of  the  value  of  four  days 
labor  in  each  week.  Terrible  is  the 
injustice  to  wage-earners,  the  world  over, 
if  the  deductions  of  Carpenter  and  Godwin 
are  to  be  accepted.  “Behold  the  hire  of 
the  laborers  which  is  of  you  kept  back  by 
fraud,  crieth:  and  the  cries  of  them  are 
entered  into  the  ears  of  the  Lord  of  Saba- 
oth.”  Proudhon  and  Spencer  have  revealed 
the  “economic’s  lies”  of  modern  society. 
“ The  great  game  of  the  business  world  is 
the  game  of  getting  on,”  wrote  John  Ruskin; 
“not  of  everybodies  getting  on,  but  of  some- 
body getting  on.  What  to  one  family  is 
the  game  of  getting  on,  to  one  thousand 
families  is  the  game  of  not  getting  on.  Nay, 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


q6 

you  say,  they  have  all  their  chance.  Yes, 
so  has  every  one  in  a lottery,  but  there 
must  always  be  the  same  number  of  blanks. 
Ah!  but  in  a lottery  it  is  not  skill  and  in- 
telligence that  take  the  lead,  but  blind 
chance.  What  then!  do  you  think  the  old 
practice  that  they  should  take  who  have  the 
power,  and  they  should  keep  who  can,  is 
less  iniquitous  when  the  power  has  become 
the  power  of  brains  instead  of  fist?” 

Is  this  a world  of  equivalents  in  labor? 
What  is  the  ratio  of  riches  awarded  to  those 
who  toil?  In  i860,  the  net  average  income 
was  but  three  per  cent.  Yet,  for  that  year 
the  income  of  bare  money  (which  needs 
no  food,  clothing  or  shelter),  was  all  the 
way  from  five  to  thirty  per  cent.  In  Eng- 
land 30,000,000  people  are  taxed  that  interest 
may  be  paid  to  300,000.  In  1870,  the  interest 
on  the  national  debts  of  the  world  amounted 
to  $1,700,000,000.  This  rate  in  nine  3'ears 
would  absorb  a sum  equal  to  the  entire 
property  of  this  country  in  1870.  We  are 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


97 


informed  that  trade  is  annually  taxed  (in- 
terest on  capital)  about  $200,000,000,  for 
which  not  one  dollar  of  actual  service  is 
rendered.  Is  interest  on  “watered”  stock 
any  better  than  theft? 

A world  of  equivalents,  indeed ! In 
our  cities  five  per  cent  of  the  population 
own  more  property  than  ninety-five  per 
cent;  and  twenty  per  cent  of  the  nation 
own  more  than  the  remaining  eighty  per 
cent.  At  the  present  rate  of  increase, 
within  thirty  years,  100,000  persons  will  own 
four-fifths  of  all  the  property  in  the  United 
States.  In  twenty-five  years  the  number 
of  our  people  who  own  their  homes  has 
decreased  from  five-eighths  to  three-eighths. 
In  New  York  City  more  than  1,100,000 
persons  are  dwelling  in  tenement  houses. 
“ In  1889,  the  farm  mortgages  in  the  western 
states  amounted  to  three  billion  four  hun- 
dred and  twenty-two  million  dollars'.'  In 
England,  to-day,  there  are  less  than  30,000 
landed  proprietors — one  half  of  the  country 


98 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


is  owned  by  150  men.  Twelve  men  own 
one-half  of  Scotland.  The  working  classes 
of  the  United  Kingdom  own  but  a thirtieth 
part  of  the  total  real  and  personal  property. 

Strictly  considered,  two  things  are  said 
to  be  equivalent  when  they  are  “ equal  in 
value.”  Generally  speaking,  however,  inter- 
changes are  seldom,  if  ever,  “alike  in  worth.” 
The  equality  of  labor  for  labor  does  not 
occur  once  in  millions  of  times.  “\’alue” 
is  an  indefinite  term.  Into  “worth”  enters 
such  intangible  qualities  as  whim,  caprice, 
taste,  fancy,  ambition,  pride,  habit,  desire, 
appetite,  passion  and  amusement.  Exact 
and  utilitarian  standards  would  destroy  belle 
lettres  and  the  fine  arts;  dissipate  recreation 
and  the  amenities  of  life.  Are  there  pre- 
cise “work-a-day”  equivalents  for  literature, 
music,  sculpture,  painting;  for  the  opera,  the 
theatre,  the  salon,  the  club-room?  Gaming 
is  an  amusement  for  many  persons.  Thous- 
ands enjoy  the  excitements  of  chance.  It 
stimulates  their  spirits  above  the  cares  and 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


99 


drudgery  of  existence.  Such  men  prefer 
a game  to  either  book,  piano  or  cigar. 
With  them  it  is  not  a question  of  utility 
but  of  diversion.  Is  the  value  of  enter- 
tainment to  be  measured  in  muscle  or 
metal? 

Wherein,  essentially,  does  gaming  differ 
from  speculation  or  insurance?  All  have 
their  foundation  in  chance.  Contingencies 
and  uncertainties  enter  into  each  as  a con- 
sideration for  investment.  A gamester  bets 
upon  the  turn  of  a card,  or  the  cast  of  a 
die.  The  speculator  purchases  in  antici- 
pation of  contingent  advance  in  the  price 
of  a commodity.  A corporation  indemni- 
fies an  individual,  conditionally,  against  pos- 
sible death  or  loss  by  fire.  In  neither 
instance  can  the  result  be  foretold:  the 
gamester  may  or  may  not  win,  the  specu- 
lator may  or  may  not  realize  a profit,  the 
assured  may  or  may  not  forfeit  his  life 
policy,  or  lose  by  fire.  In  every  transaction, 
fortuity  is  the  controlling  element;  if  for 


lOO 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


this  reason  any  one  is  invalid  or  immoral, 
so  are  the  others.  Large  sums  have  been 
won  and  lost  at  cards.  Many  fortunes  had 
their  origin  in  speculation:  also,  it  has  been 
productive  of  wide-spread  disaster,  distress 
and  despair.  Insurance  companies  have 
benefited  thousands  of  widows  and  orphans. 
Innumerable  are  the  families  upon  whom 
indigence  has  fallen  through  the  forfeiture 
of  policies.  Forfeited  premiums  to  the 
amount  of  millions  are  now  invested  in 
palatial  structures  throughout  the  civilized 
world.  Analysis  might  show  in  gaming, 
speculation  and  insurance,  that  at  least  the 
equities  and  ethics  are  even. 

View  the  subject  as  we  may,  ye  gamester, 
“where  is  thine  accuser?”  To  all  men  he 
can  say ; “ He  that  is  without  sin  among 
you,  let  him  first  cast  a stone.” 

Now,  some  one  may  ask:  “Is  not  gamb- 
ling immoral  to  the  extent  it  may  induce  a 
reliance  upon  chance  for  a livelihood,  instead 
of  patient  industry.”  I might  reply:  “What 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


lOI 


is  industry,  as  known  to  political  economy; 
and  what  proportion  of  the  world’s  wealth 
is  a result  of  direct  personal  exertion  ? ” 
But,  generally,  men  are  rational  creatures, 
and  do  not  depend  upon  games  of  chance 
for  a living.  The  credulous  men  are  rela- 
tively few  who  rely  entirely  upon  the  out- 
come of  chance  in  games  as  a business; 
and  those  few  are  at  least  on  a par  in 

wisdom  and  ethics  with  the  millions  who 
gamble  in  future  prices  of  stocks,  grain, 

and  other  commodities.  “Ah!  but  you  for- 
get,” rejoins  my  critic,  “that  in  other  pur- 
suits a man  produces  something  by  his  in- 
dustry, or  contributes  to  that  result  in- 

directly, whereas  in  gambling  nothing  is 
produced.”  I consider  this  erroneous,  in 
the  face  of  social  experience,  as  has  been 
indicated  heretofore.  It  may  be  as  soundly 
said,  that  a “ man  has  no  right  to  invest 
his  money  in  cattle,  or  lands,  or  bonds, 

unless  his  labor  is  put  in  with  it.  A man 
buys  a horse  and  hires  him  to  his  neighbor. 


102 


WHAT  IS  TRUTH? 


Is  he  entitled  to  the  money  his  horse  earns 
for  him  ? He  invests  in  bonds  at  fifty 
cents  on  the  dollar.  Does  he  not  hope 
they  will  appreciate  in  value,  until  they 
are  worth  dollar  for  dollar?  He  pays 
$1000  for  a piece  of  land.  In  two  or  three 
years,  perhaps,  his  neighbors  have  invested 
around  him,  and  have  improved  their  pro- 
perties, and  he  finds  that  his  land  will  sell 
for  $2000.  His  labor  did  not  contribute 
to  that  result.  He  risked  his  capital  ex- 
actly as  he  would  have  done  in  a game 
of  chance.” 


I 


Ube  destinies; 


or, 


^be  IReign  of  ILaw, 


CHAPTER  III. 

XTbe  IDestintes;  or,  XEbe  IRetgn  of  Xaw. 


N one  occasion,  an  aged  scholar  so- 


liloquized as  follows : Homer  was 


at  the  same  time  beggar  and  poet : his 
mouth  more  often  filled  with  verses  than 
with  bread,  Plautus  turned  a mill  that  he 
might  live.  Menander,  Cratinus  and  Ter- 
rence were  drowned;  Empedocles  lost  in  the 
crater  of  Mount  Etna;  Euripides  and  Her- 
aclitus torn  to  pieces  by  dogs;  Hesiod, 
Archilochus  and  Ibychus,  murdered.  Sappho 
threw  herself  from  a precipice.  Condemned 
by  a tyrant,  respectively,  Seneca,  Lucan, 
and  Petronius  Arbiter,  cut  their  veins  and 
bled  to  death.  Poison  terminated  the  lives 
of  Socrates,  Demosthenes  and  Lucretius. 


(105) 


I06  THE  DESTINIES. 

“In  Plutarch,  we  read  of  ‘two  eminent 
persons,  whose  names  were  Attis,  the  one 
a Syrian,  the  other  of  Arcadia,  both  were 
slain  by  a wild  boar;  of  two,  whose  names 
were  Acteon,  one  was  torn  to  pieces  by  his 
dog,  the  other  by  assassins;  of  two  famous 
Scipios,  one  overthrew  the  Carthagenians 
in  war,  the  other  totally  destroyed  them; 
four  of  the  most  warlike  commanders  of 
antiquity  had  but  one  eye  — Philip,  Antig- 
onous,  Hannibal  and  Sertorius.’ 

“ Paul  Borghese,  a writer  of  rhythmic  verse, 
died  of  starvation.  Tasso,  himself  the  most 
amiable  of  poets,  lived  like  a pauper,  and 
passed  away  in  an  asylum.  Bentivoglio,  a 
creator  of  classic  comedies,  in  the  misery 
of  his  old  age,  was  refused  admittance  to 
an  hospital  he  had  founded.  Cervantes 
died  of  hunger,  and  Camoens  ended  his 
days  in  an  almshouse.  The  body  of  \Hu- 
gelas  was  disposed  of  to  surgeons  that 
his  debts  might  be  paid.  Spencer  was  for- 
saken and  neglected  in  his  old  age.  Decker, 


THE  DESTINIES. 


107 


Gotten,  Savage  and  Lloyd  breathed  their 
last  in  jails. 

“Might  not  these  men  have  said,  ‘Who 
can  shut  out  fate?’  Were  they  the  sport 
of  circumstances,  or  could  circumstances 
have  been  made  their  sport?  Was  each  in- 
dependent of  fatality?  Was  he  free  from 
destiny;  or,  was  he  subject  to  an  unalter- 
able course — an  invincible  necessity?’’ 

The  query  of  this  venerable  sage  has 
been  that  of  civilized  man  in  every  age. 
Coming  into  the  world  with  the  dawn  of 
philosophy,  it  will  remain  until  the  veil  of 
Isis  is  uplifted.  Profoundest  wisdom  has 
ever  taught  the  subordination  of  man  to 
a higher  law,  by  which  his  career  is  largely 
determined  from  the  beginning.  Investi- 
gation will  disclose  that  such,  to-day,  is  the 
real  opinion  of  a vast  majority  of  mankind. 

The  thought  was  ascendant  in  the  liter- 
ature and  religion  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 
Their  Moira  was  a personification  of  law; 
the  Goddess  of  Destiny,  who  assigned  to 


io8 


THE  DESTINIES. 


everyone  his  fate,  or  “share.”  At  the  birth 
of  man  she  spun  the  thread  of  his  future 
life,  pursued  his  footsteps,  and  directed  the 
consequences  of  his  actions,  according  to 
the  decrees  of  Zeus.  By  some  she  was 
conceived  as  a fatal  divinity,  who  directed 
human  affairs  in  such  a manner  as  to  re- 
store the  right  proportions  or  equilibrium, 
wherever  it  had  been  disturbed;  who  meas- 
ured out  happiness  and  unhappiness,  and 
allotted  losses  and  sufferings  to  him  who 
was  blest  with  too  frequent  gifts  of  Fortune, 
to  the  end  he  might  be  humbled  into  ac- 
knowledging the  existence  of  bounds  beyond 
which  human  happiness  cannot  proceed  with 
safety. 

To  Homer  she  was  not  an  absolute 
sovereign  of  both  heaven  and  earth,  to  whom 
even  the  gods  must  bow;  but  merely  ap- 
portioned the  fate  of  men,  as  counseled 
by  Deity.  In  the  theology  of  Hesiod  there 
were  three:  Clotho,  the  spinning  fate;  Lach- 
esis,  who  assigned  to  man  his  fate;  and 


THE  DESTINIES. 


1 09 


Atropo,  who  decreed  a fate  that  could  not 
be  avoided.  This  conception  answered  to 
the  Teutonic  Norns,  or  Weird  Sisters.  What 
was  to  the  earlier  poets  of  Greece  a person, 
/Eschylus  apprehended  as  a principle ; a 
law  for  both  gods  and  men;  an  over-ruling, 
ever-present,  inevitable  necessity,  against 
which  it  is  vain  to  contend,  and  from  which 
it  is  hopeless  to  escape.  “ His  characters 
are  pre-determined  parricides,  murderers  and 
adulterers.”  For  instance,  the  destiny  of 
the  pious  Amphiaraus  led  him  to  that  death 
his  wisdom  foresaw;  fate  impelled  him  to  the 
society  his  judgment  forbade.  Good  Ete- 
ocles,  too,  lies  under  the  band  of  fate,  but 
seeks  not  to  avert  the  doom.  “ Stern,  un- 
compromising, he  will  meet  the  man  he 
must  slay,  by  whom  he  must  himself  fall.” 
The  inexorable  destiny  of  Avschylus  was 
to  Sophocles  and  Plato  an  ordering  of  the 
divine  will. 

Two  great  schools  of  philosophy  divided 
the  educated  opinion  of  classic  Greece  and 


I lO 


THE  DESTINIES. 


Rome.  The  tenets  of  both  were  fatalistic 
in  tendency.  What  was  to  the  Epicurean 
a “chance”  appealed  to  the  Stoic  as  “law.” 
Man,  taught  Epicurus,  is  a mere  buffet  of 
a blind  fatality.  The  phenomenon  of  life, 
said  Stoicism,  is  governed  with  iron  sway 
by  an  imminent  necessity  of  reason.  “ Man 
should  be  free  from  passion,”  preached 
Zeno,  “unmoved  by  joy  or  grief,  and  submit 
without  complaint  to  the  unavoidable  power 
by  which  all  things  are  governed.” 

Buddhism  is  the  doctrine  taught  ly  Gau- 
tama, the  Hindoo  sage,  in  the  sixth  century, 
B.C.;  now  the  belief  of  a greater  part  of 
central  and  eastern  Asia  and  the  Indian 
Islands.  In  this  creed,  fatality  is  a cardinal 
principle.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  has  designated 
it  “ The  Light  of  Asia.”  The  great  religion 
of  Brahma,  also,  teaches  that  everything  is 
subject  to  a divinely  appointed  necessity. 
It  boasts  a philosophy  that  was  the  admir- 
ation of  Bruno,  Schelling,  Hegel,  and  Draper. 
Manes  declared  that  the  moral  universe  was 


THE  DESTINIES. 


I I I 

controlled  by  two  supreme  principles;  one 
the  author  of  all  good,  the  other  the  author 
of  all  evil.  The  highest  conception  of  Mo- 
hammed is  an  arbitrary  and  inexorable  law. 
In  the  Koran  we  read;  “No  man  can  antici- 
pate or  postpone  his  end.  Death  will  over- 
take us,  even  in  lofty  towers.  From  the 
beginning,  God  hath  settled  the  place  in 
which  each  man  shall  die.”  The  Persian 
poet  sings:  “The  destinies  ride  their  horses 
by  night.  No  man  can  by  flight  escape  his 
fate.  Whether  asleep  in  bed  or  in  the  storm 
of  battle,  the  angel  of  death  will  find  thee.” 
“ I am  convinced,”  saith  Ali,  “ that  the  affairs 
of  men  go  by  divine  decree,  and  not  by  our 
administration.” 

In  the  philosophy  of  Solomon,  as  recorded 
in  Ecclesiastes,  we  read:  “The  thing  that 
hath  been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be;  and 
that  which  is  done  is  that  which  shall  be 
done:  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the 
sun.  . . . To  everything  there  is  a 

season,  and  a time  to  every  purpose  under 


I I 2 


THE  DESTINIES. 


the  heaven:  a time  to  be  born,  and  a time 
to  die;  a time  to  plant,  and  a time  to  pluck 
up  that  which  is  planted;  a time  to  kill, 
and  a time  to  heal;  a time  to  break  down, 
and  a time  to  build  up;  a time  to  mourn, 
and  a time  to  dance;  a time  to  cast  away 
stones,  and  a time  to  gather  stones  together; 
a time  to  embrace,  and  a time  to  refrain 
from  embracing;  a time  to  get,  and  a time 
to  lose;  a time  to  keep,  and  a time  to  cast 
away;  a time  to  rend,  and  a time  to  sew; 
a time  to  keep  silence,  and  a time  to  speak; 
a time  to  love,  and  a time  to  hate;  a time 
of  war,  and  a time  of  peace.” 

With  Christianity  came  the  dogma  of 
“predestination”  and  “election.”  This  was 
promulgated,  on  the  very  threshold,  by  Paul, 
a man  of  the  sublimest  genius;  adorable, 
venerable  and  heroic.  Thus  he  addressed 
the  church  at  Rome:  “And  we  know  that 
all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God, — to  them  who  are  the  called 
according  to  His  purpose.  For  whom  he 


THE  DESTINIES. 


II3 

did  foreknow,  he  also  did  predestinate  to 
be  conformed  to  the  image  of  his  Son,  that 
he  might  be  first  born  among  many  brethren. 
Moreover  whom  he  did  predestinate,  them 
he  also  called:  and  whom  he  called,  them 
he  also  justified:  and  whom  he  justified, 
them  he  also  glorified.  What  shall  we  say 
to  these  things?  If  God  be  for  us,  who 
can  be  against  us?” 

This  idea  is  necessarily  involved  in  the 
theology  of  St.  Augustine,  who  maintained 
that  “ grace  is  effectual  from  its  nature, 
absolutely  and  morally,  not  relatively  and 
gradually.”  It  remained  for  John  Calvin 
to  erect  the  assertions  of  Paul  into  a cognate 
and  masterly  system.  He  insisted  upon  the 
purpose  of  God  from  eternity,  respecting 
all  events. 

Briefly,  of  the  religion  of  the  world, 
to-day,  ninety  per  cent  are  predestinarian 
in  theory  or  practice,  consciously  or  un- 
consciously. Of  Christendom,  those  who 
agree  with  Arminius  are  in  a small  min- 


THE  DESTINIES. 


II4 

ority,  relatively:  — a minority  whose  creed 
involves  not  only  the  limitation  of  divine 
knowledge,  but  a paralysis  of  divine  power 
and  the  moral  chaos  of  a universe. 
That  religion  is  necessarily  puerile  and  un- 
philosophic  which  attempts  to  reconcile  the 
omnipotence  of  God  with  the  freedom  of 
man.  Either  Nature  is  ordered  for  the 
best — so  as  to  produce  the  highest  good; 
or  else,  everything  is  purposeless  and  for 
the  worst.  In  a word,  either  optimism  or 
pessimism  must  wholly  prevail:  logically,  a 
middle  ground  is  impossible.  We  must 
choose  between  Leibnitz  or  Schopenhaue:*. 

Literature  and  religion  aside,  the  greatest 
intellects  have  promulgated  a “ philosophy 
of  necessity.”  Everything  that  exists,  wrote 
Oersted  in  substance,  depends  upon  the  past, 
prepares  the  future,  and  is  related  to  the 
whole.  ” Everything  throughout  creation  is 
governed  by  law : but  over  most  of  the 
tracts  that  come  within  the  active  experi- 
ence of  mankind,  the  governing  hand  is  so 


THE  DESTINIES. 


II5 

secret  and  remote,  that  until  very  large 
numerical  masses  are  brought  under  the 
eye  at  once,  the  controlling  power  is  not 
detected.”  Jonathan  Edwards  said:  “Noth- 
ing comes  to  pass  without  a cause.  What  is 
self-existent  must  be  from  eternity,  and  must 
be  unchangeable;  but  as  to  all  things  that 
begin  to  be,  they  are  not  self-existent,  and 
therefore  must  have  some  foundation  for 
their  existence  without  themselves.”  Spin- 
oza urged  that  “ In  no  mind  is  there  an 
absolute  or  free  volition;  but  it  is  deter- 
mined to  choose  this  or  that  by  a cause, 
which  likewise  has  been  fixed  by  another, 
and  this  again  by  a third,  and  so  on  for- 
ever.” Emanuel  Kant  contended  that  “ every 
action  or  phenomenon,  so  far  as  it  produces 
an  event,  is  itself  an  event  or  occurrence, 
which  pre-supposes  another  state  wherein 
the  cause  is  to  be  met  with;  and  thus  every- 
thing that  happens  is  but  a continuation  of 
the  series,  and  no  beginning  which  occurs 
of  itself  is  possible;  consequently,  all  the 


THE  DESTINIES. 


1 16 

actions  of  the  natural  causes,  in  the  suc- 
cession, are  themselves  again  effects.”  Our 
own  Emerson  asserted  the  omnipotence  and 
omnipresence  of  law:  “That  the  wilful  and 
the  fantastic,  the  low  and  the  lofty,  are 
encircled  by  a necessity.”  Whatever  limits 
us,  we  call  fate.  If  we  are  brute  and  bar- 
barous, the  fate  takes  a brute  and  dreadful 
shape.  If  we  rise  to  spiritual  culture,  the 
antagonism  takes  a spiritual  form.  . . . 

The  limitations  refine  as  the  soul  purifies, 
but  the  ring  of  necessity  is  alwa3's  perched 
at  the  top. 

None  greater  than  these  may  be  found 
in  the  noble  realm  of  speculative  thought. 
They  are  unequalled  by  few,  if  any.  The 
whole  field  of  modern  science,  also,  is  in 
accord  with  their  deductions  : Teaching 
that  nature  is  an  inevitable  sequence,  and 
that  all  phenomena,  material  and  mental, 
are  linked  together  by  an  inevitable  con- 
nection. In  the  words  of  Herbert  Spencer: 
“ Various  classes  of  facts  unite  to  prove 


THE  DESTINIES. 


II7 


that  the  law  of  metamorphosis  which  holds 
among  the  physical  forces,  holds  equally 
between  them  and  the  mental  forces.  Those 
modes  of  the  unknowable  which  we  call 
motion,  light,  heat,  chemical  affinity,  etc., 
are  alike  transferable  into  each  other,  and 
into  those  modes  of  the  unknowable  which 
we  distinguish  as  sensation,  emotion,  and 
thought;  these  in  their  turns  being  directly 
or  indirectly  re-transferable  into  the  original 
shapes.” 

Would  you  dethrone  man,  I am  asked? 
No;  I surrender  to  the  behests  of  philosophy 
as  fortified  by  the  deductions  of  science. 
Years  ago  it  was  argued  by  Comte  that,  in 
social  order,  the  higher  must  subordinate 
itself  to  the  lower.  That  the  organic  finds 
itself  controlled  and  limited  by  the  inorganic 
world,  and  man  has  to  work  out  his  destiny 
in  submission  to  all  the  necessities,  physical, 
chemical  and  vital,  which  are  pre-supposed 
in  his  existence.  “The  higher,”  he  con- 
tinued, “ can  overcome  the  lower  only  by 


THE  DESTINIES. 


obedience;  if  it  is  to  conquer,  it  must  at 
least  ‘stoop  to  conquer.’”  And  as  was  once 
stated  by  Doctor  Conolly,  “All  the  superi- 
ority of  man,  all  those  faculties  which  elevate 
and  dignify  him,  this  reasoning  power,  this 
moral  sense,  these  capacities  of  happiness, 
these  high  aspiring  hopes,  are  felt  and  en- 
joyed and  manifested  by  means  of  the 
nervous  system.  Its  injury  weakens,  its  im- 
perfections limit,  its  destruction  ends  them.” 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  is  not  this  a denial 
of  “free-will?”  Yes,  as  popularly  under- 
stood. A “ free-will,”  in  the  metaphysical 
sense,  is  impossible.  The  conception  is 
unknown  to  the  best  modern  psychology. 
The  abstract  will,  of  certain  metaph}'- 
sicians,  is  a phantasm.  Individual  voli- 
tions, only,  come  within  our  actual  ex- 
perience. They  have  been  generalized,  by 
mental  philosophers,  into  a self-existent, 
self-sustaining,  and  self-procreating  entity. 
However,  an  abstraction  is  not  an  essence. 
Such  men  but  tell  us  what  a “free  will” 


THE  DESTINIES. 


IIQ 


should  be;  that  it  exists  has  never  been 
demonstrated.  Again,  the  phenomenon 
“ will  ” is  now  known  to  be  transmitted  from 
generation  to  generation.  Heredity  teaches 
that  its  energy  and  its  weakness  are  con- 
nected with  certain  states  of  the  organism. 
“We  can  no  longer  doubt  the  transmission 
takes  place  by  means  of  the  organs,  and, 
in  fact,  that  the  ‘will’  is  physiological.’’ 
Moreover,  in  a philosophical  sense,  the  idea 
is  “at  war’’  with  a uniform  law  of  cause 
and  effect.  Chance  events  are  inconceiv- 
able in  a universe  of  causation.  Freedom 
of  the  will,  therefore,  is  a delusion.  For 
ages  men  believed  that  the  sun  revolved 
around  the  earth,  because  it  seemed  to  do 
so.  A similar  illusion  is  at  the  base  of  our 
ethical  system,  since  we  enjoy  only  the  ap- 
pearance of  liberty.  “ Our  apparent  freedom 
consists  in  the  absence  of  all  physical  re- 
straints, and  in  our  power  to  do  as  we 
please;  but  what  we  please  to  do  depends 
upon  our  mental  constitution  and  the  cir- 


120 


THE  DESTINIES. 


cumstances  in  which  we  are  placed.”  The 
idea  was  beautifully  expressed  by  Emerson 
in  his  poem  ‘‘  Fate.” 

‘ ‘ Deep  in  the  man  sits  fast  his  fate, 

To  mold  his  fortune,  mean  or  great : 

Unknown  to  Cromwell  as  to  me 
Was  Cromwell’s  measure  or  degree; 

Unknown  to  him  as  to  his  horse. 

If  he  than  his  groom  be  better  or  worse. 

He  works,  plots,  lights  in  rude  affairs. 

With  Squires,  Lords,  Kings,  his  craft  compares. 

Till  late  he  learned,  through  doubt  and  fear. 

Broad  England  harbored  not  his  peer. 

Obeying  time,  the  last  to  own 
The  genius  from  its  cloudy  throne. 

For  the  prevision  is  allied 
Unto  the  thing  so  signified ; 

Or  say,  the  foresight  that  awaits. 

Is  the  same  genius  that  creates.” 

In  human  history,  as  in  physical  nature, 
therefore,  every  event  is  linked  to  its  ante- 
cedent by  an  unavoidable  connection,  and 
such  precedent  is  connected  with  an  anterior 
effect;  and  thus  the  whole  would  form  a 
necessary  chain,  in  which,  indeed,  each  man 
may  play  his  part,  but  can  by  no  means 
determine  what  the  part  shall  be. 


THE  DESTINIES. 


I2I 


The  moral  actions  of  men,  said  Buckle, 
are  the  product  of  their  antecedents.  In 
other  words,  when  an  action  is  performed, 
it  is  performed  in  consequence  of  certain 
motives;  those  motives  are  the  results  of 
some  antecedents;  “ therefore,  if  we  were 
acquainted  with  the  whole  of  the  antecedents 
and  with  all  the  laws  of  their  movements 
we  could  with  certainty  foretell  the  whole 
of  their  immediate  results.  This  great 
social  law  is  liable  to  disturbances  which 
trouble  its  operation,  without  affecting  its 
truth.” 

Ergo,  given  any  set  of  circumstances, 
and  nothing  could  have  happened,  save  that 
which  did  happen;  and  under  exactly  the 
same  conditions,  the  conduct  of  men  must 
ever  issue  in  the  same  results.  The  past 
should  be  dismissed  without  regrets.  Our 
position,  at  any  time,  should  be  judged  as 
it  really  is,  and  not  for  what  we  vainly 
suppose  it  might  have  been;  “for  nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  we  could  not  have 


122 


THE  DESTINIES. 


acted  differently  in  any  act  of  our  lives, 
with  the  state  of  mind  and  circumstances 
then  existing.” 

Statistics,  likewise,  are  daily  making  it 
evident  that  the  same  fixed  calculable  laws 
exist  in  the  departments  of  life  and  mind 
as  in  physics.  ” In  individual  cases,  or  in 
a limited  circle,  apparent  uncertainty  may 
exist.  Within  a given  number  of  cases, 
however,  and  a large  field,  invariable  results 
may  be  looked  for.” 

In  the  1 2th  annual  report  of  William 
Farr,  Esq.,  to  the  Registrar  General  of  Eng- 
land, we  are  told  “it  may  be  broadly  stated 
that  27  in  1000  men  of  the  population  of 
the  age  of  20  and  under  60,  are  suffering 
from  one  kind  of  disease  or  another;  that 
several  are  of  long  duration,  that  others 
are  recurrent,  and  that  some  are  heredi- 
tary.” We  are  informed  in  a subsequent 
report  of  the  Registrar  himself,  that  it  seems 
to  be  a “law”  one  person  out  of  every  45, 
living  at  the  commencement  of  any  year, 


THE  DESTINIES. 


123 


will  die  within  that  year.  (The  entire 
system  of  insurance — life,  fire,  and  marine — 
is  erected  on  the  principle  contended  for 
in  this  chapter.  Not  only  do  a certain 
relative  number  of  men  die  in  each  class 
annually,  but  the  law  extends  to  the  number 
of  policies  lapsed  each  year.  There  seems 
also  to  be  a periodicity  in  the  number  of 
fires  and  marine  disasters.) 

According  to  Porter  and  Buckle,  even 
“marriage  is  not  determined  by  the  temper 
and  wishes  of  the  individual,  but  by  large 
general  facts  over  which  individuals  can  ex- 
ercise no  authority.  It  is  now  known  that 
marriages  bear  a fixed  and  definite  relation 
to  the  price  of  corn.”  A century’s  experi- 
ence in  England  demonstrates  that  mar- 
riages are  regulated  by  the  average  earn- 
ings of  the  great  mass  of  people.  Cheap- 
ness of  provision  and  not  love  regulates 
the  number  of  nuptials.  Combe  affirms 
the  same  striking  coincidence  in  the  ratio 
of  births  m Great  Britain. 


124 


'J'HE  DESTINIES. 


Another  singular  fact  has  been  deduced 
from  the  official  reports  of  England  and 
France.  “ Even  forgetfulness  is  under  a 
constant  law.”  Buckle  is  an  authority  for 
the  statement  that  ” year  after  year,  the 
same  proportion  of  letter-writers  forget  to 
direct  their  letters,  in  some  part;  so  that 
for  each  successive  period  we  can  actually 
foretell  the  number  of  persons  whose  memory 
will  fail  them  in  regard  to  this  trifling  oc- 
currence.” 

By  the  same  witness  we  prove  “ the  uni- 
form reproduction  of  crime  is  more  clearly 
marked,  and  more  capable  of  being  pre- 
dicted than  are  the  physical  laws  connected 
with  the  disease  and  destruction  of  our 
bodies.”  Before  this.  Combe  had  observed 
a similar  uniformity,  under  similar  circum- 
stances, of  the  recurrence  of  crimes.  He 
perceived  in  human  conduct  the  same  strik- 
ing indications  of  constancy  in  results,  as  in 
the  prevalence  of  disease  and  the  endur- 
ance of  life.  Combe  said,  in  1854,  in  writ- 


THE  DESTINIES. 


ing  by  way  of  comment  on  a certain  report 
to  the  House  of  Commons:  “During  the 
five  years,  ending  with  the  last  year  of  an 
execution,  there  were  committed  for  the 
crimes  enumerated,  7276  persons,  of  whom 
196  were  executed.  During  the  five  years 
immediately  following  the  last  execution, 
there  were  committed  for  the  same  offense 
7120.  Does  not  this  show  that  these  crimes 
arose  from  causes  in  themselves  permanent, 
and  which  punishment  does  not  remove?” 
Rawson  also  remarked  that  the  greatest 
variation  which  had  taken  place  during 
three  years,  in  the  proportion  of  any  class 
of  criminals,  at  the  same  period  of  life,  had 
not  exceeded  a half  per  cent. 

And  Dr.  Brown  states  (Vol.  8 of  the 
Assurance  Magazine),  that  “in  twenty  years, 
the  number  of  persons  accused  of  various 
crimes  in  France,  and  registered  under  their 
respective  ages,  scarcely  varies  at  any  age, 
from  year  to  year,  comparing  the  propor- 
tional per  cent  under  each  age  with  the 


THE  DESTINIES. 


I 26 

totals.  M.  Quatelet  deduced  from  the  sta- 
tistical returns  of  government  in  the  same 
country,  that  for  1826,  1827,  1828,  1829  and 
1830,  in  each  year,  there  was  one  person 
accused  out  of  every  4463  inhabitants,  and 
61  condemned  out  of  every  100  accused. 
“ In  everything  which  concerns  crime,”  ob- 
served this  greatest  of  statisticians,  “ the 
same  numbers  re-occur  with  a constancy 
which  cannot  be  mistaken,  and  that  this  is 
the  case,  even  with  those  crimes  which  seem 
quite  independent  of  human  foresight,  such, 
for  instance,  as  murders,  which  are  gener- 
ally committed  after  quarrels  arising  from 
circumstances  apparently  casual.  Neverthe- 
less, we  know  from  experience,  that  every 
year  there  not  only  take  place  the  same 
number  of  murders,  but  even  the  instru- 
ments by  which  they  are  committed,  are 
employed  in  the  same  proportion.”  Murder, 
then,  ‘‘  occurs  with  as  much  regularity  as 
the  movements  of  the  tides  and  the  rota- 
tion of  the  seasons.” 


THE  DESTINIES. 


127 


“ Self-murder,”  Buckle  observes,  “ seems 
to  be  not  only  capricious  and  uncontrol- 
able,  but  also  very  obscure  in  regard  to 
proof.  Yet,  in  different  countries,  for 
which  we  have  returns,  we  find,  year  by 
year,  the  same  proportion  of  persons  put- 
ting an  end  to  their  own  existence.  In 
London,  for  example,  about  240  persons 
make  away  with  themselves  every  year;  the 
annual  suicides  oscillating,  from  the  pressure 
of  temporary  causes,  between  266,  the  highest, 
and  213,  the  lowest.  In  1846,  which  was 
the  great  year  of  excitement  — caused  by 
the  railroad  panic — the  suicides  in  London 
were  266;  in  1847  began  a slight  improve- 
ment, and  they  fell  to  256;  in  1848  they 
were  247;  in  1849  they  were  213;  in  1850 
they  were  229. 

In  the  “Journey  through  India,”  Heber 
mentions  the  vain  attempt  of  the  English 
government  to  check  the  frequent  suicides 
by  drowning,  committed  at  Benares;  and 
August  Comte  has  exposed  the  folly  of 


128 


THE  DESTINIES. 


thinking  that  suicide  can  be  diminished  by 
the  enactments  of  law-givers. 

Of  this  field,  Quatelet  says,  in  conclusion: 
“ The  possibility  of  assigning,  beforehand, 
the  number  of  accused  and  condemned 
which  should  occur  in  a country,  is  calcu- 
lated to  lead  to  serious  reflections,  since 
it  involves  the  fate  of  several  thousands  of 
human  beings,  who  are  impelled,  as  it  were, 
by  an  irresistible  necessit}^  to  the  bar  of 
the  tribunal,  and  towards  the  sentences  of 
condemnation  that  there  await  them.  These 
conclusions  flow  directly  from  the  prin- 
ciple, already  so  often  stated  in  this  work, 
that  effects  are  in  proportion  to  their 
causes,  and  that  the  effects  remain  the 
same,  if  the  causes  which  produced  them 
do  not  vary.” 

Another  step  is  needed  to  complete  our 
argument  in  this  branch.  Actions  are  the 
production  of  motives.  Motives  are  the 
effects  of  determinate  antecedents.  Whence 
these  antecedents?  They  are  to  be  found 


THE  DESTINIES. 


129 


in  the  “ Law  of  Heredity.”  Reproduction 
is  governed  by  law,  and  ‘‘  like  begets  like.” 
To  quote  from  Voltaire:  “The  physical, 
which  is  ‘ father  of  the  moral,’  transmits 
the  same  character  from  father  to  son  for 
ages.  The  Appii  were  ever  proud  and  in- 
flexible ; the  Catos  always  austere.  The 
whole  line  of  the  Guises  were  bold,  rash, 
factious,  full  of  the  most  insolent  pride  and 
most  winning  politeness.  From  Francis  de 
Guise  down  to  that  one  who  put  himself 
at  the  head  of  the  people  of  Naples,  they 
were  all  in  look,  courage  and  character 
above  ordinary  men.  I have  seen  full  length 
portraits  of  Francis,  of  Balafre  and  his  son: 
they  were  all  six  feet  high,  and  they  all 
possess  the  same  features — the  same  auda- 
city on  the  brow,  in  the  eyes,  and  in  the 
attitude.”  M.  Taine  sees  in  Lord  Byron 
a true  descendant  of  the  Berserkers.  To 
Ribot,  the  French  of  the  19th  century  are 
the  Gauls  described  by  Caesar  and  Strabo. 
Amphere  writes  of  the  character  of  the 


130 


THE  DESTINIES. 


Greeks,  that  it  has  not  changed;  “ lie  has 
now  the  same  qualities,  the  same  defects 
as  of  old.”  The  physiology  and  mentality 
of  parents  characterize  their  offspring.  The 
human  mind  is  not  a blank  at  birth.  Its 
capabilities  and  character  are  inherited. 
Every  possibility  of  the  soul  is  innate  and 
constitutional  from  the  moment  of  gestation. 
Such  is  the  verdict  of  science  substantiated 
by  Ribot,  Galton,  and  Fowler. 

That  the  peculiar  anatomy  and  physi- 
ognomy of  races  is  persistent  and  hereditary, 
must  be  admitted.  The  truth  is  verified 
by  every-day  experience.  We  see  it  in  the 
Englishman,  the  Frenchman,  the  Spaniard, 
and  Scandinavian.  The  intellectual  char- 
acteristics of  a people  are  likewise  trans- 
mitted from  generation  to  generation. 
The  Indian,  for  example,  is  ever  wild, 
free,  cunning  and  revengeful.  Negroes, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  generally  timid, 
garrulous,  urbane  and  polite.  The  He- 
brews, again,  are  noteworthy  for  intellectual 


THE  DESTINIES. 


I3I 

calibre,  the  acquisitive  faculty,  and  a clan- 
nish spirit. 

In  the  family,  likewise,  likenesses  and 
stature  pass  from  generation  to  generation. 
So,  also,  of  size.  Fowler  found  this  exempli- 
fied everywhere.  Some  of  his  illustrations 
were  taken  from  the  Websters,  Franklins, 
and  Folgers.  Muscular  strength  is  heredi- 
tary, as  with  the  Douglas,  Fessenden,  and 
Garrish  families.  Physical  deformities  and 
excrescences  obey  this  edict  of  nature;  and 
it  includes  disease,  insanity,  gray  hair,  pre- 
mature death,  propensities,  length  of  life 
and  beauty.  The  truth  is  overwhelming 
that  mental  faculties  and  qualities  descend 
from  child  to  child.  These  sequences  in 
mental  phenomena  operate  through  gener- 
ations upon  caution,  self-esteem,  firmness, 
pride,  benevolence,  and  religious  feeling. 
Talent  and  ability  go  by  descent.  Even 
genius,  although  akin  to  divine,  is  transmis- 
sible. “ Each  generation,”  said  Galton, 
“ has  enormous  power  over  the  natural  gifts 


132 


THE  DESTINIES. 


of  those  that  follow.  . . . The  results  of 

an  examination  into  the  kindred  of  about 
400  illustrious  men  of  all  periods  of  history 
were  such,  in  my  own  opinion,  as  com- 
pletely to  establish  the  theory  that  genius 
was  hereditary.” 

Now  for  my  application.  Gambling,  in 
some  form,  is  a propensity  of  the  general 
mind:  an  inclination  now  hereditary  in  the 
race.  That  such  must  be  the  case  is  clear 
from  Ribot,  Maudsley  and  Da  Gama  Ma- 
chado. ” The  dead  rule  over  the  living,” 
writes  Spencer.  “ Past  generations  exercise 
power  over  present  generations,  by  trans- 
mitting their  nature,  bodily  and  mental.” 

The  origin  and  development  of  gambling 
were  obvious  to  the  eminent  astronomer, 
Richard  A.  Proctor.  ‘‘  Beyond  doubt,”  he 
said,  “the  element  of  chance  which  enters 
into  all  lives,  has  had  a most  potent  influ- 
ence in  moulding  the  characters  of  men.  If 
we  consider  the  multitudinous  fancies  and 
superstitions  of  men  like  sailors,  farmers. 


THE  DESTINIES. 


133 


and  hunters,  whose  lives  depend  more  on 
chance  than  those  of  men  in  some  other 
employments,  and  recognize  this  as  the 
natural  effect  of  the  influence  which  chance 
has  on  their  fortunes,  we  need  not  consider 
it  strange  if  the  influence  of  chance,  in 
moulding  the  minds  and  characters  of  our 
ancestors  during  countless  generations,  should 
have  produced  a very  marked  effect  on 
human  nature.  An  immense  number  of 
those  from  whom  I inherit  descent  must, 
in  the  old  savage  days,  have  depended 
almost  wholly  upon  chance  for  the  very 
means  of  subsistence.  When,  wild  in  wood, 
the  savage  ran,  he  ran  on  speculation.  He 
might,  or  he  might  not,  be  lucky  enough 
to  earn  his  living  on  any  day,  by  a successful 
chase,  or  by  finding  such  fruits  of  the  earth 
as  would  supply  him  with  a satisfactory 
amount  of  food.  He  might  have  much  de- 
pending on  chances  which  he  could  not 
avoid  risking,  as  the  gambler  of  ta-day  has 
when  he  ‘sees  red’  and  stakes  his  whole 


134 


THE  DESTINIES. 


fortune  on  a throw  of  the  dice  or  a turn 
of  the  cards.  We  cannot  be  doubtful  about 
the  effects  of  such  chance  influences  even 
on  the  individual  character.  Repeated, 
generation  after  generation,  they  must  have 
tended  to  fill  men  with  a gambling  spirit^ 
only  to  be  corrected  by  innumerable  gener- 
ations of  steady  labor;  and,  unfortunately, 
even  in  the  steadiest  work,  the  element  of 
chance  enters  largely  enough  to  render  the 
corrective  influence  of  such  work  on  the 
character  of  the  race  much  slower  than  it 
might  otherwise  be.  Every  man  who  has 
to  work  for  his  living  at  all,  every  man 
who  has  to  depend  in  any  way,  on  business 
for  wealth,  has  to  trust  to  chance,  in  many 
respects.  So  that  all  men,  in  some  degree, 
more  or  less,  have  their  characters  modified 
by  this  peculiarity  of  their  environment. 
The  inherited  tendency  of  each  one  of  us 
towards  gambling,  in  some  one  or  other  of 
its  multitudinous  forms,  is  undoubtedly 
strengthened  in  this  way.” 


THE  DESTINIES. 


135 


First,  we  see,  it  cannot  be  said  that 
gambling  is  immoral,  sinful,  or  irreligious. 
Second,  it  is  clear  the  propensity  to  gamble 
is  as  natural  as  the  temperament  or  com- 
plexion. The  law  can  no  more  destroy  the 
natural  inclination  of  the  mind,  than  it  can 
make  “one  hair  white  or  black.”  If  an  evil 
(which  in  the  absolute  sense  I deny),  it  is 
not  to  be  prevented  by  legislation.  It  is 
no  more  possible,  by  direct  effort,  to  change 
the  gaming  proclivity  in  man  than  to  stem 
the  torrent,  or  check  the  eternal  progress 
of  the  glacier.  The  growth  of  centuries, 
down  it  moves  through  the  years  in  an 
irresistible  march.  Absurd  seem  all  our 
demonstrations;  how  idle,  the  beating  of  the 
air.  When  one  form  passes  away  another 
immediately  takes  its  place.  Disappearing 
here,  it  appears  there.  Apparently  sup- 
pressed in  one  place  it  breaks  out  with  more 
vigor  in  another.  Continue  it  will,  and  con- 
tinue it  must,  whether  practiced  openly  or 
in  secret.  If  it  is  not  the  faro-bank  or 


THE  DESTINIES. 


lottery  it  is  something  worse.  If  not  the 
gambling-rooms  of  a Morrissey,  a Daly,  a 
Pendleton  or  a Hankins,  it  will  be  the  mam- 
moth palaces  (boards  of  trade  and  chambers 
of  commerce,  so-called) , which  now  are  a 
feature  of  every  city  in  Christendom,  and 
wherein  millions  upon  millions  are  wagered 
annually  upon  the  very  bread  and  meat 
' wherewith  our  life  is  sustained;  wherein 
billions  are  lost  and  won,  sometimes  to  the 
injury  of  every  department  of  actual  pro- 
duction. There  are  the  open  boards  of 
trade,  too,  wherein  the  petty  transactions 
aggregate  many  millions.  I am  told  by 
those  who  have  made  it  a study  for  years, 
that  more  than  8o  per  cent  of  the  trans- 
actions on  the  exchange  are  fictitious:  mere 
betting  on  the  rise  and  fall  of  commodities 
in  price.  All  authority  in  this  matter  is 
practically  powerless.  Inclinations  will  be 
satisfied,  and  until  inclinations  change,  the 
demand  will  be  supplied;  this,  moreover,  in 
the  face  of  laws  however  stringent,  or  police 


Till-:  DESTINIES. 


137 


supervision  however  effective.  Such  methods 
are  not  only  ineffective,  but  absolutely  in- 
jurious to  society.  No  nation  or  govern- 
ment has  succeeded  in  restricting,  limiting, 
or  curing  the  gambling  spirit  and  practice. 
That  this  is  true,  I call  upon  every  candid 
and  fair-minded  man  of  experience  to  bear 
witness.  I appeal  to  lawyers,  judges,  states- 
men, scientists,  philosophers,  and  the  police 
and  municipal  authorities  throughout  the 
United  States  and  Europe  to  corroborate 
my  statement.  The  sooner  this  is  generally 
realized,  the  better  for  humanity.  What  I 
have  to  suggest,  instead  of  the  present 
policy,  is  reserved  for  consideration  in  an- 
other place.  I may  say  here,  however,  that 
for  the  law  to  punish  what  it  cannot  thereby 
cure  is  absurd — absurd  as  is  every  attempt 
to  accomplish  the  impossible.  Systematic 
education  is  the  only  hope;  incessant  train- 
ing the  only  remedy  for  appetites  and  pro- 
pensities; either  for  their  correction,  restraint, 
or  subversion.  If  it  had  been  revealed  to 


THE  DESTINIES. 


138 

man  that  gambling  is  a sin,  even  that  would 
not  vitiate  our  reasoning  in  this  chapter. 
God,  or  absolute  wisdom,  should  be  able 
to  reconcile  the  existence  of  an  evil  with 
His  own  Sovereignty.  However,  this  chapter 
is  not  concerned  with  the  realities  of  re- 
ligion, or  the  true  principles  of  philosophy. 
As  human  conceptions,  they  have  been  noted 
as  in  accord  with  the  teachings  of  science; 
to  show  that  the  human  intellect  responds 
intuitively  to  what  are  subsequently  known 
as  the  laws  of  nature. 


legislative  lEyoccism; 

or, 

Ube  Belief  in  Morbsflf)agic. 


(139) 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Xegislative  Bjorcisin;  or,  TLbc  ifiSeUef 
tn  MorD=/IDacjlc. 

For  ages,  mankind  were  believers  in 
magic.  One  of  the  phases  was  Ex- 
orcism, or  a pretended  exercise  of  super- 
natural power,  through  certain  words  of 
magic  import.  “ Healing  words,”  says  Van 
Helmont,  “ were  used  against  the  devil  and 
all  diseases.”  And  it  is  asserted  by  the 
Zendavesta  that  “ many  cures  are  performed 
by  words.”  That  the  magic  power  of  words 
was  a belief  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  is 
evident  from  their  literature.  Thus  it  is 
said  of  Plotin,  that  while  in  Sicily  he  cured 
Porphyrius  of  a fever,  “by  wonder-working 
words.”  We  are  told  how  Orpheus’  song 

(141) 


142 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


calmed  the  storm,  and  how  Ulysses  “ stopped 
the  bleeding  of  wounds  by  the  use  of  certain 
words.”  They  also  tell  us,  that  with  words, 
Cato  cured  sprains;  Marcus  Varrus  removed 
tumors;  and  Servilius  Novianno  restored 
sight  to  the  eyes.  It  is  gravely  stated  by 
Pliny  that  Cato  did  not  alone  use  the  words, 
” motas,  daries,  dardaries,  astaries,”  but  like- 
wise a green  branch,  four  or  five  feet  long, 
which  he  split  in  two,  and  caused  to  be  held 
over  the  injured  limb.  A similar  power  was 
ascribed  to  the  philosopher,  Pythagoras. 
And  if  “ye  olden  chronicle  ” is  to  be  credited, 
the  curses  of  Peter  of  Amiens  and  Bernard 
of  Clairvaux,  “produced  fearful  spasms  and 
sufferings,  whilst  their  blessings  restored 
speech  to  the  dumb  and  health  to  the  sick.” 

The  belief  in  magic  is  not  general  in  our 
age  of  the  world.  It  has  gradually  retired 
before  the  march  of  reason  and  the  light  of 
scientific  truth.  That  all  nature,  organic  and 
inorganic,  animate  and  inanimate,  is  subject 
to  a universal  law  of  cause  and  effect,  is  now 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


143 


a truism  to  every  educated  person.  Science 
has  forever  destroyed  the  curative  influence 
of  phrases.  Reason  sternly  excludes  verbal 
formulae,  from  the  realm  of  physical  causation. 
That  any  mere  words  may  be  used  against 
disease  or  injury  is  now  denied  by  enlight- 
ened opinion  the  world  over.  In  medicine, 
therefore,  Exorcism  is  a thing  of  the  past. 

One  aspect  of  the  superstition  still  re- 
mains, as  an  obstacle  to  the  progress  of 
humanity;  the  possibility  of  legislating  mo- 
rality into  men.  Law-givers  still  cling  to 
the  power  of  “exorcism”  by  statute.  Their 
blind  creed  is:  “beatification  and  education 
by  law.”  “ To  them,  laws  are  the  cows,  whose 
teats  mankind  should  suck.  To  them,  men 
are  as  dough,  which  their  wisdom  would 
knead.”  This  adoration  of  the  law  and 
legislators  was  systematically  inculcated  by 
the  i8th  century  publicists:  Montesquieu, 
Robespierre,  Rousseau,  and  St.  Just.  They 
seem  to  teach  that  “ the  law  cannot  come  out 
of  us,  but  must  be  poured  into  us.”  But,  as 


144 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


Erlanger  has  said  with  truth,  he  who  under- 
takes to  give  institutions  to  a people  must 
feel  within  himself  the  capacity  to  change 
human  nature,  to  metamorphose  every  man, 
to  transmute  the  constitution  of  each  indi- 
vidual, to  strengthen  them;  in  one  word, 
“ he  must  take  from  mankind  their  own 
powers,  and  impart  to  them  a foreign 
power.” 

Statesmen  should  recognize  with  Car- 
penter, that  “ society  is  the  gigantic  growth 
of  centuries,  moving  on  in  a resistless  and 
orderly  march,  with  the  precision  and  fatality 
of  an  astronomic  orb.”  The  huge  being 
marches  on  with  elephantine  tread.  The 
liberal  sits  on  its  front  and  the  conservative 
on  its  rear;  but  both  are  swept  along,  whether 
they  will  or  not,  and  both  are  shaken  off  ere 
long,  inevitably,  into  the  dust.  One  reformer 
shouts  “ this  way,”  and  another  cries  “ that,” 
but  down  comes  the  great  foot  and  crushes 
both,  indifferently;  the  man  who  thought  he 
was  right,  and  the  man  who  found  he  was 


le'gislative  exorcism. 


145 


wrong;  crushing,  alike,  him  who  would  facili- 
tate, and  him  who  would  impede  its  progress. 
At  least,  it  should  be  kept  in  mind,  “that 
laws  are  made  by  the  people,  and  not  the 
people  by  the  laws.”  Modern  society  is  so 
burdened  by  an  enormous  and  complex  over- 
growth of  law,  that  the  necessity  for  its  ex- 
istence is  now  a prevailing  notion,  to  the 
end  that  men  may  be  kept  in  order:  that, 
without  the  oppressive  institution,  people 
would  not  follow  a systematic  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  all  observation  of  civilized  races 
discovers  the  directly  opposite.  The  instinct 
of  man  is  to  regularity  of  life,  and  law  is 
but  a result  or  expression  of  this.  “ As  well 
attribute  the  organization  of  a crab  to  the 
influence  of  its  shell,  as  ascribe  the  orderly 
life  of  a nation  to  the  action  of  its  laws.” 
The  law  may  have  a purpose,  but  to  believe 
it  will  preserve  order  is  illusive.  This  it 
certainly  does  not  effect,  even  with  all  its 
machinery  of  police,  courts  and  prisons. 
Fichte  said:  “The  object  of  all  government 


146 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


is  to  render  government  superfluous.”  The 
same  idea  has  been  expressed  by  Whitman 
and  Paine.  Moreover,  “ if  external  authority, 
of  any  kind,  has  a final  purpose,  it  must 
be  to  establish  and  consolidate  an  internal 
authority.  When  this  process  is  complete, 
government,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  is  already 
rendered  superfluous.” 

The  world  has  been  slow  (or  loath)  to 
learn  the  only  proper  functions  of  govern- 
ment. This  must  be  clear  to  every  reader 
of  Bruce  Smith,  Lieber  and  Dick.  In  the 
governments  of  oriental  antiquity,  political 
authority  was  clothed  with  a super-eminent 
and  absolute  jurisdiction  over  the  whole 
life  of  its  subjects;  ‘‘the  manners  of  their 
subjects,  their  rank,  their  condition,  mode 
of  life,  and  daily  occupations,  were  all  fixed 
by  the  law.” 

And,  in  the  opinion  of  Grecian  philoso- 
phers, the  state  was  everything,  the  individual 
nothing.  In  their  judgment,  the  government 
should  not  permit  any  individual  to  waste 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


147 


his  power  and  energy,  nor  should  he  be 
allowed  to  misdirect  it.  They  insisted  the 
law  must  first  devise  the  model  of  a perfect 
citizen  ; and  then,  by  a system  of  discipline, 
mould,  or  rather  distort,  into  agreement 
therewith,  the  character  of  every  citizen. 
The  powers  of  state,  therefore,  should  em- 
brace individual  life  in  its  entirety;  from 
infancy  to  mature  age,  “in  all  conditions 
and  relations,  whether  domestic,  religious, 
social,  industrial  or  political.” 

Such  teachings  had  their  illustration  in 
the  administration  of  Greek  governments. 
In  Sparta,  for  example,  under  the  reign  of 
Lycurgus,  the  citizen  belonged  to  the  state, 
rather  than  to  the  family.  The  individual 
Athenian  did  not  have  a right  the  Archons 
were  “bound  to  respect.”  Draco  punished 
even  laziness  with  death,  and  Solon  pro- 
hibited costly  sacrifices  at  funerals.  In 
Greece,  Lycurgus  seems  to  have  been  the 
first  legislator  against  luxury.  He  enacted, 
for  example,  that  no  Spartan  should  own  a 


148 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


house,  or  household  article,  which  had  been 
made  with  a finer  implement  than  an  axe  or 
a saw;  and  that  no  cook  should  use  any 
other  spice  than  salt  and  vinegar.  Our 
authorities  are  Ephorus  and  Diogenes  La- 
ertius. The  sumptuary  prohibitions  of  Solon, 
according  to  Plutarch,  were  aimed  at  the 
female  passion  for  dress,  as  well  as  the  pomp 
of  funerals.  He  likewise  placed  surveillance 
over  the  luxury  of  banquets. 

The  Dorian  races  were  disposed  to 
austere  and  rigid  habits  of  life.  A La- 
conian could  not  lawfully  attend  a drink- 
ing entertainment.  In  Lacedtcmonia,  fru- 
gality and  simplicity  were  the  object  of  the 
pheiditia.  Gold  and  silver  were  interdicted, 
and  their  legislation  permitted  the  use  of 
iron  money  alone.  In  Magna  Graecia,  the 
Pythagoreans  encouraged  the  sumptuary 
policy.  Zaleucus,  the  Locrian  legislator,  en- 
acted that  no  woman  should  appear  in  public 
wearing  gold  ornaments,  or  embroidered 
apparel,  unless  her  designs  were  unchaste. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


149 


Roman  statesmen  were  not  wiser,  in  their 
day,  than  those  of  Greece.  From  the  time 
of  the  Kings,  they  sought  by  law  to  regulate 
luxurious  tendencies.  We  find  it  in  the  law 
of  the  Twelve  Tables:  “ Do  not  carve  the 
wood  which  is  to  serve  for  a funeral  pile. 
Have  no  weeping  women  to  tear  their 
cheeks;  no  gold,  no  coronets.”  Certain 
foreign  articles  of  luxury  were  prohibited 
about  i8q  b.  c.  An  important  part  of  the 
legislation  of  Sulla,  Csesar,  Crassus,  Antony, 
Augustus  and  Tiberius,  related  to  the  ex- 
penditures for  food,  funerals  and  games  of 
chance.  Says  Plutarch : ” The  Romans 

thought  the  liberty  ought  not  to  be  left  to 
each  private  citizen  to  marry  at  will,  to 
choose  his  manner  of  life,  to  make  feasts; 
in  short,  to  follow  his  desires  and  his  tastes, 
without  being  subject  to  the  judgment  and 
supervision  of  anyone.”  The  Oppian  Law 
forbade  matrons  to  have  more  than  a half- 
ounce of  gold,  to  wear  garments  of  diversi- 
fied color,  or  to  use  carriages  in  Rome. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


150 

Following  a revolt  of  the  Women,  in  195 
B.  c.,  this  law  was  abrogated.  Inspired  by 
Cato,  the  Censor,  fourteen  years  later,  the 
Orchian  Law  was  promulgated.  It  limited 
the  table  expenses,  as  did  the  Fannian  Law 
twenty  years  after.  The  Lex  Orchia  limited 
the  number  of  guests  to  be  present  at  a 
feast.  The  general  cost  of  entertainment 
was  fixed  by  the  Lex  Fannia.  A limit  of 
one  hundred  asses  was  established  for  some 
festivals,  and  thirty  asses  for  others.  Ordin- 
ary entertainments  were  restricted  to  ten 
asses.  The  Didian  Law  extended  to  all 
Italy. 

In  Greece,  sumptuary  laws  were  seldom 
or  never  regarded  b}^  the  people,  who  always 
entered  into  a tacit  and  general  conspiracy 
against  their  enforcement.  Notwithstanding 
the  Roman  notatio  censoria,  luxury  continued 
to  increase  with  the  growth  of  wealth.  No 
law  of  senate  or  emperor  could  restrain  the 
tendency.  “ From  first  to  last,”  writes  the 
historian,  “all  were  habitually  transgressed.” 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  15! 

In  the  time  of  Tertullian  they  appear  to 
be  of  the  past. 

Instances  of  like  legislation  disfigure  the 
statue-books  of  every  civilized  country  down- 
ward from  the  fifth  century,  a.  d.  All  sumptu- 
ary laws,  at  Rome,  were  formally  repealed 
by  the  later  emperors;  but  the  folly  there- 
after re-appeared  when  European  society 
began  to  rally  and  segregate  under  Charle- 
magne. To  illustrate,  “in  the  latter  middle 
ages,  knights  were  allowed  to  wear  gold, 
and  esquires  only  silver;  the  former  damask, 
the  latter  satin  of  taffeta;  when  the  esquires 
used  damask,  velvet  was  reserved  for  the 
knights.”  The  first  legislation  of  this  char- 
acter, in  the  modern  world,  was  enacted  by 
Frederick  II.,  in  Italy;  James  I.,  in  Aragon; 
Philip  IV.,  in  France;  Edward  II.  and  Ed- 
ward III.,  in  England.  Commencing  in 
France  with  Charlemagne,  it  first  became 
extensive  and  flourished  under  Philip  IV.  and 
Charles  VI.  From  Edward  III.  until  the 
Reformation,  it  was  in  great  favor  in 


152 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


England.  Great  was  the  absurdity  to  which 
legislators  were  carried  by  this  vain  policy. 
In  Scotland,  for  example,  one  parliament 
forbade  ladies  to  attend  church  with  the 
face  muffled  in  a veil,  and  another  fulmin- 
ated against  superfluous  banqueting  and  the 
inordinate  use  of  foreign  spices;  while  a 
Danish  law  provided  that  no  servant  girl 
should  wear  her  hair  curled.  The  edicts  of 
Philip  IV.  related  to  extravagance  at  table 
and  in  dress.  An  edict  of  Charles  for- 
bade the  use  of  long-pointed  shoes.  Charles 
VI.  allowed  no  one  to  exceed  a soup  and 
two  dishes  at  dinner.  Later  French  kings 
sought  to  restrict  the  use  of  gold,  silver, 
silks,  embroidery,  and  fine  linen.  P'rom 
Blanqui  we  take  a sample  ordinance  of  the 
character  under  consideration.  “The  said 
Lord  the  King,  being  duly  informed  that 
the  great  superfluity  of  meat  at  weddings, 
feasts  and  banquets,  brings  about  the  high 
price  of  fowls  and  game,  wills  and  decrees 
that  the  ordinance  on  this  subject  be  renewed 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


153 


and  kept;  and  for  the  continuance  of  the 
same,  that  those  who  make  such  feasts,  as 
well  as  the  stewards  who  prepare  and  con- 
duct them,  and  the  cooks  who  serve  them, 
be  punished  with  the  penalties  hereunto 
affixed.  That  every  sort  of  fowl  and  game 
brought  to  the  markets  shall  be  seen  and 
visited  by  the  poulterer-wardens,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  officers  of  the  police  and  bour- 
geois clerks  to  the  aforesaid,  who  shall  be 
present  at  the  said  markets,  and  shall  cause 
a report  to  be  made  to  the  police,  by  the 
said  wardens.  The  public  shall  be  likewise 
bound  to  live  according  to  the  ordinance  of 
the  King,  without  exceeding  the  limit,  under 
penalty  of  such  pecuniary  fines  as  are  herein 
set  forth  against  the  inn-keeper,  so  that 
neither  by  private  understanding  nor  common 
consent  shall  the  ordinance  be  violated.” 
During  the  same  year,  another  ordinance 
provided  “ that  no  bourgeois  woman  shall 
have  a chariot;  no  bourgeois  man  or  woman 
shall  wear  green,  or  grey,  or  ermine,  and 


154 


legislativf:  exorcism. 


they  shall  dispose  of  those  they  have,  by  a 
year  from  Easter  next.  The  dukes,  counts 
and  barons  of  6000  livres,  in  land,  or  more, 
may  have  four  robes  a year,  and  no  more, 
and  the  women  as  many.  A knight  who 
has  3000  livres,  in  land,  may  have  three  robes 
a year  and  no  more;  and  one  of  these  three 
robes  shall  be  for  summer.  At  the  principal 
meals  of  the  day  no  one  shall  have  but  two 
viands  and  a pork  soup,  and  let  him  not  de- 
ceive about  it.  It  is  ordained  that  no  prelate 
or  baron  shall  have  a robe  for  body  of  more 
than  25  Tournish  sous,  a Paris  ell.”  In 
1294  it  was  decreed  “that  every  manner 
of  people,  who  have  not  an  income  of  6000 
Tournish  livres,  shall  not  use,  and  will  not 
be  able  to  use,  any  gold  or  silver  plate  for 
drinking,  for  eating,  or  for  other  use,  and 
that  no  person,  under  penalty  of  fine  and 
imprisonment,  shall  practice  any  fraud  about 

•.I.  »» 

It. 

In  France,  laws  of  this  character  disap- 
peared near  the  end  of  the  i6th  centur}-. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


155 


Under  Louis  XV.,  all  such  laws  were  practi- 
cally a dead  letter.  “ These  ordinances  are 
the  history  of  but  yesterday,”  says  an  able 
and  profound  student  of  French  legislation; 
“ but  ideas  and  sentiments  have  gone  far 
in  advance  of  facts.  We  have  difficulty  in 
comprehending  the  interference  of  govern- 
ment in  the  domestic  affairs  of  families,  and 
in  contracts  which  concern  only  private  indi- 
viduals. Opinion  has  undergone  an  entire 
revolution.  Sumptuary  laws  can  no  longer 
be  proposed.  We  need  not  think  the  change 
is  due  to  our  wisdom,  to  our  pretended  superi- 
ority to  the  ancients;  let  us  simply  recognize 
that  the  essential  principle  of  society  has 
changed;  the  world  moves  on  another  basis. 

. . In  no  century  were  these  laws  ob- 

served to  any  great  extent.  Enactments  of 
this  kind  were  never  effectual  in  France. 
Since  the  Revolution,  no  sumptuary  laws 
have  been  enacted,  and  yet  the  luxury  of 
attire  which  formerly  distinguished  the  no- 
bility has  disappeared.  A duke  dresses  like 


156  LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 

anybody  else,  and  he  would  be  ridiculed  if 
he  sought  to  distinguish  himself  by  a manner 
of  dress  different  from  others.” 

It  has  been  observed  by  one  of  the 
great  statesmen  of  England,  that  the  broad 
principles  of  freedom  had  been  early  recog- 
nized in  that  country,  and  understood  by 
even  the  citizens  of  minimum  intelligence; 
for  instance,  freedom  of  locomotion,  freedom 
in  the  disposition  of  property,  freedom  of 
opinion  in  politics  and  religion.  But  that 
other  important  features  of  the  same  prin- 
ciple were  not  so  quickly  and  clearly  under- 
stood. “I  refer,”  he  continues,  ‘‘to  such 
matters  as  freedom  of  commercial  intercourse 
and  exchange,  freedom  of  contract  in  the 
natural  rise  and  fall  of  wages  and  in  the 
condition  of  labor;  freedom  of  individual 
taste  and  expenditure,  in  the  more  private 
concerns  of  life.  In  many  cases,  these  were 
matters  which  affected  the  poor  and  rich 
alike,  but  principally  the  poor,  who,  in  their 
meagre  parliamentary  representation,  en- 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


157 


joyed  few  opportunities  for  effectual  protest. 
One  can  only  account  for  the  continuance 
of  those  which  materially  affected  the  better 
classes,  who  did  enjoy  representation,  to 
the  fact  that,  not  being  familiar  with  the 
fundamental  economic  laws,  which  are  now 
so  widely  understood,  they  were  not  prompted 
to  any  practical  resistance.  It  is  highly 
probable,  too,  that  for  want  of  this  know- 
ledge, most  people  rested  satisfied  with  the 
vague  idea  that,  in  some  way  or  other, 
though  not  very  clear,  such  restrictive  legis- 
lation produced  some  good  to  somebody.” 
We  pass  over  those  legislative  and  executive 
interferences,  which  present  “ every  possible 
contrivance  for  hampering  the  energies  of 
commerce.”  Purely  economic  questions  are 
not  germane  to  our  discussion;  such  as  the 
numerous  and  ingenious  restraints  upon 
foreign  trade;  the  attempts  to  regulate  the 
rate  of  wages  and  the  price  of  food. 

Richard  II.,  Henry  IV.,  and  Edward  IV. 
legislated  against  the  liveried  suits  of  the 


I 58  LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 

nobility.  This  was  also  prohibited  by  Henry 
VII.;  and  yet,  even  under  James  I.,  says 
Hume,  “ we  find  ambassadors  accompanied 
by  a suite  of  500  or  300  noblemen.”  During 
the  reign  of  Edward  HI.  it  was  enacted  that 
no  man  should  be  allowed  more  than  two 
courses  at  dinner  or  supper,  or  more  than 
two  kinds  of  food  in  each  course.  Three 
courses  were  permitted  on  the  festival  days 
of  the  year.  Foreign  cloth  was  allowed  to 
the  royal  family  alone.  Unless  a man  pos- 
sessed at  least  ;^ioo  per  annum  he  was  for- 
bidden furs,  skins  and  silks.  During  the 
same  reign,  another  act  divided  the  people 
of  England  into  classes,  and  prescribed  the 
apparel  of  each.  In  the  social  scale  it  did 
not  go  higher  than  knights,  and  minutel}' 
regulated  the  clothing  of  women  and  chil- 
dren. It  was  repealed  the  following  year. 
In  1363  it  was  enacted  that  servants  should 
have  only  one  meal  a day  of  flesh  or  fish. 
The  statute  of  1444  attempted  to  regulate 
the  price  of  clothing  for  each  year:, a bailiff. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


159 


50T.;  principal  servant,  40T.:  ordinary  servant, 
33T.  \d.  James  I.,  of  Scotland,  forbade  not 
only  “ sumptuous  clothing,”  but  the  use  of 
pies  and  baked  meats,  to  all  under  the  rank 
of  baron.  The  Scottish  sumptuary  law  of 
1612  was  the  last  in  Great  Britain.  The 
English  laws  were  largely  repealed  during 
the  reign  of  James  I.  A few  remained  on  the 
statute  book  as  late  as  1856.  Mr.  Froude  has 
exposed  the  folly  of  their  existence. 

It  has  been  said  of  the  English  laws  they 
“were  at  all  times  inspired  by  a desire  to 
arrest  an  irresistible  movement,  resulting 
from  the  very  force  of  things — from  the 
logical  development  of  human  activity. 
They  were,  moreover,  powerless,  and  always 
evaded  by  a sort  of  tacit  and  general  con- 
spiracy of  all  the  citizens,  without  anyone 
being  able  to  find  fault  with  the  principle, 
without  anyone  thinking  of  contesting  the 
power  of  the  legislator  on  this  point.” 

Roscher  remarks:  “In  Ireland  the  gov- 
ernment had  endeavored  for  a long  time  to 


i6o 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


preserve  that  country  from  the  ravages  of 
alcohol,  by  the  imposition  of  the  highest 
taxes,  and  the  severest  penalties  for  smug- 
gling. Every  workman  in  an  illegal  distillery 
was  transported  for  seven  years,  and  every 
town  in  which  such  a one  was  found  w'as 
subject  to  a heavy  fine.  All  in  vain.  Only 
numberless  acts  of  violence  were  now  added 
to  beastly  drunkenness.” 

In  another  place,  Roscher  continues  thus; 
“ Where  it  has  been  attempted  to  suppress 
the  consumption  of  popular  delicacies,  the 
impossibility  of  enforcing  sumptuary  laws 
has  been  most  strikingly  observed.  Thus, 
in  the  i6th  century,  an  effort  was  made  as 
regards  brandy;  in  the  17th,  as  regards  to- 
bacco; in  the  i8th,  as  regards  coffee.  The 
Hessian  law  of  1530  provided  that  only 
apothecaries  should  retail  brandy.  In  ibcg 
Papal  excommunication  was  fulminated 
against  all  who  took  snuff  in  church,  and 
was  repeated  in  i6qo.  According  to  a 
Turkish  law  of  1610,  all  smokers  should  have 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  l6l 

their  pipes  broken  against  the  nose.  In  1634 
a Russian  law  prohibited  smoking  under 
penalty  of  death.  In  Switzerland,  even  in 
the  17th  century,  no  one  could  smoke  except 
in  secret.  In  its  native  place  even  coffee 
had  a hard  struggle.  Prohibited  in  Turkey 
in  1633  under  pain  of  death;  it  was  still 
prohibited  in  Basel  in  1769,  and  could  be 
sold  by  apothecaries  only  as  medicine.  In 
Hanover  the  coffee  trade  was  prohibited  in 
1780.  When  governments  discovered  the 
fruitlessness  of  these  efforts,  they  gave  up 
the  prohibition  of  these  luxuries,  and  instead 
substituted  taxes  on  them,  thus  aiming  to 
combine  a moral  and  a fiscal  end.  Even 
Cato  took  this  course.  His  office  of  censor, 
which  united  the  highest  moral  superinten- 
dence with  the  highest  financial  guidance, 
must  of  itself  have  led  him  in  this  direction. 

Strange  it  is  how  slowly  men  learn  by 
experience.  We  know  of  the  many  oppres- 
sions in  England  “ for  opinion’s  sake.” 
History  tells  us  that  the  puritan  fathers 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


162 

sought  “freedom  of  conscience”  in  the  wilds 
of  America.  Yet,  scarcely  were  the  “pil- 
grims” of  New  England  wonted  to  a strange 
and  inhospitable  land,  than  what  they  re- 
quired for  themselves  was  denied  to  others. 
In  their  fanaticism,  the  “soul  liberty”  of 
Roger  Williams  was  violated  in  every  con- 
ceivable way.  Personal  freedom  was  vio- 
lated to  an  extent  that  is  now  the  detestation 
of  right-thinking  persons.  Execrable  for 
their  tyrannical  spirit,  are  some  of  the  records 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  Plymouth,  New  Haven 
Colony  and  Connecticut.  The  following 
extracts  are  taken  from  the  records  of  the 
General  Court  of  the  Colony  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay: 

“ 1635:  Whereas,  complaints  hath  bene 
made  to  this  Courte  that  dyvers  persons, 
within  this  jurisdiction,  doe  usually  absent 
themselves  from  Church  meetings  upon  the 
Lord’s  Day,  power  is  therefore  given  to  any 
two  assistants  to  heare  and  sensure,  either 
by  fine  or  imprisonment,  all  misdemeanors 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  163 

of  that  kind,  committed  by  any  inhabitant 
within  this  jurisdiction,  provided  they  ex- 
ceede  not  the  fine  of  15  shillings  for  any 
one  offense.” 

“ 1669:  Any  person  or  persons  that  shade 
be  found  smoking  tobacco  on  the  Lord’s 
Day,  going  to  or  coming  from  the  meetings, 
within  two  miles  of  the  meeting  house,  shall 
pay  12  pence  for  every  such  default  to  the 
colonies’  use.” 

“ 1692:  All  and  every  justices  of  the  peace, 
constables  and  tything  men  are  required  to 
restrain  all  persons  from  swimming  in  the 
water;  unnecessary  and  unreasonable  walk- 
ing in  the  streets  or  fields  in  the  toun  of 
Boston,  or  other  places;  in  the  evening  pre- 
ceding the  Lord’s  Day,  or  any  other  part 
of  the  said  day  or  the  evening  following.” 

‘‘  1634;  The  court,  taking  into  consider- 
ation the  greate,  superfluous  and  unneces- 
sary expenses  occassioned  by  some  newe 
and  immodest  fashions,  as  also  the  ordinary 
wearing  of  golde,  silver,  silke,  laces,  girdles. 


164 


LEGISLATI\E  EXORCISM. 


hat-bands,  etc.,  hath,  therefore,  ordered  that 
noe  person,  either  man  or  woman,  shall  here- 
after make  or  buy  any  apparell,  either  woolen, 
silke  or  lynen,  with  any  lace  on  it,  silver, 
golde,  silke  or  thread,  under  the  penalty  of 
the  forfeiture  of  such  clothes.” 

“ 1782;  Be  it  enacted  that  each  person, 
being  able  of  body  and  mind,  not  otherwise 
necessarily  prevented,  who  shall,  for  the 
space  of  one  month  together,  absent  himself 
or  herself  from  the  public  worship  of  God, 
on  the  Lord’s  Day,  shall  forfeit  and  pay 
the  sum  of  ten  shillings.” 

In  old  Connecticut  we  find  legislation 
similar  in  character.  In  1647:  ‘‘Forasmuch, 
as  it  is  observed  that  many  abuses  are  crept 
in  and  committed  by  the  frequent  taking  of 
tobacco,  it  is  ordered  by  the  authorit}’  of 
this  Court,  that  no  person  under  the  age  of 
20  years,  nor  any  other  that  hath  not  accus- 
tomed himself  to  the  use  thereof,  shall  take 
any  tobacco  until  he  hath  brought  a certifi- 
cate under  the  hands  of  some  who  are  ap- 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM, 


165 

proved  for  knowledge  and  skill  in  physic, 
that  it  is  useful  to  him  and  that  he  hath 
received  a license  from  the  Court  for  the 
same.” 

“1643:  Whoever  shall  prophane  the  Lord’s 
Day,  or  any  part  of  it,  by  unlawful  sport, 
recreation  or  otherwise,  whether  wilfully  or 
in  careless  neglect,  shall  be  duly  punished  by 
fine,  imprisonment,  or  corporally,  according 
to  the  nature  and  measure  of  the  sin  and 
offense,” 

Here  are  some  of  the  celebrated  New 
Haven  “ Blue  Laws:” 

“ Whoever  wears  clothes  trimmed  with 
golde,  silver  or  bone  lace,  above  two  shillings 
by  the  yard,  shall  be  presented  to  the  Grand 
Jurors,  and  the  selectmen  shall  tax  the 
offender  at  ^^300  estate.” 

“ No  one  shall  read  Common  Prayer,  keep 
Xmas  or  Saint’s  Days,  make  minced  pies, 
dance,  play  cards,  or  play  on  any  instrument 
of  music,  except  the  drum,  trumpet  and 
jew’s-harp.” 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


1 66 

“ Ko  one  shall  run  on  the  Sabbath  Day, 
or  walk  in  the  Garden  or  elsewhere,  except 
reverently  to  and  from  meeting.” 

‘‘No  one  shall  travel,  cook  victuals,  make 
beds,  sweep  house,  cut  hair  or  shave,  on  the 
Sabbath  Day.” 

‘‘  No  woman  shall  kiss  her  child  on  the 
Sabbath  or  fasting  day.” 

” If  any  man  shall  kiss  his  wife,  or  any 
wife  her  husband,  on  the  Lord’s  Day,  the 
party  in  fault  shall  be  punished  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  Court  of  Magistrates.  ” 

‘‘  Every  man  and  woman  duly,  twice  a 
day,  upon  the  first  tolling  of  the  bell,  repair 
into  the  church  to  heare  divine  service  upon 
pain  of  losing  his  or  her  day’s  allowance, 
for  the  first  omission;  for  the  second  to  be 
whipped,  and  for  the  third  to  be  condemned 
to  the  galleys  for  six  months.” 

‘‘  If  any  man,  after  legall  conviction,  shall 
have  or  worship  any  other  god  but  the  Lord 
God,  hee  shall  bee  put  to  death.” 

‘‘  If  any  person  turns  Quaker,  he  shall 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  1 67 

be  banished  and  not  suffered  to  return,  upon 
the  pains  of  death.” 

“■  No  priest  shall  abide  in  this  dominion, 
he  shall  be  banished  and  suffer  death  on 
his  return.” 

“ No  man  shall  hold  any  office  who  is 
not  sound  in  the  faith.” 

“ No  food  or  lodging  shall  be  afforded 
to  a Quaker,  Adamite,  or  other  heretic.” 

‘‘  Every  man  shall  have  his  hair  cut  round 
according  to  a cap.” 

Such  are  a few  of  the  laws  that  disgrace 
the  beginning  of  our  national  life.  Repealed 
they  never  were,  save  by  the  scorn  of  time, 
or  the  revolt  of  the  human  heart,  as  it 
struggled  into  a wider  and  brighter  existence. 
They  were  only  effective  as  the  expression 
of  a spirit  then  prevalent.  Forward  marched 
the  soul,  and  behind  is  left  the  hideous  husk. 
Here  and  there,  on  the  statute  books  of 
certain  states,  vestiges  may  remain  of  Sabba- 
tarian legislation,  but  they  are  a dead  letter,  to 
enforce  which  is  seldom  or  never  attempted. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


1 68 


Roscher  observes,  “That  the  puritanical 
laws,  which  some  of  the  states  have  passed 
prohibiting  all  sales  of  spirituous  liquors, 
except  for  ecclesiastical,  medical  or  chemical 
purposes,  have  been  found  impossible  of 
enforcement.”  Said  Dr.  Dio  Lewis  on  this 
subject:  “A  very  striking  illustration  of  the 
weakness  of  law,  when  it  comes  in  contact 
with  the  instinct  of  liberty,  is  the  result  of 
prohibition  in  Maine.  I have  taken  pains 
to  learn  the  facts  in  that  state.  I traveled 
it  throughout  and  conversed  with  a large 
number  of  its  leading  citizens,  almost  ex- 
clusively temperance  men,  and  became  satis- 
fied (notwithstanding  the  prohibitory  law), 
that  intemperance  is  the  great  overwhelming 
curse  of  the  Pine  Tree  State.”  The  Doctor 
then  found  fully  300  grog  shops  in  Bangor. 
He  says  of  Portland,  also,  the  number  of 
arrests  for  drunkenness  in  1874  was  2011. 
He  is  authority  for  the  statement  that, 
in  1873,  state  prison  inspectors  of 

Maine  reported  the  enormous  number  of 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


i6g 


17,808  arrests  for  drunkenness  during  that 
year. 

Hon.  Jam’es  McGinnis,  of  the  St.  Louis 
bar,  several  years  ago,  gave  the  prohibitory 
legislation  of  the  whole  country  (and  its 
practical  workings)  an  exhaustive  consider- 
ation in  all  aspects.  The  results  of  his  study, 
published  to  the  world,  revealed  the  same 
condition  of  affairs  in  Maine,  New  Hamp- 
shire, Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  New  York,  Delaware,  Mary- 
land, Ohio,  Indiana,  Nebraska,  Iowa,  and 
Kansas.  On  every  hand,  past  and  present, 
he  “ beheld  the  impracticability  of  prohibi- 
tion.” “ I now  appeal,”  he  says,  ” to  the 
fair-minded  reader  to  give  his  thoughtful 
attention  to  the  facts  and  figures  which  I 
have  truly  and  fairly  presented,  to  show  that 
neither  crime,  pauperism,  intemperance,  nor 
any  of  the  ills  which  are  popularly  supposed 
to  grow  out  of  intemperance,  have  been  at 
all  lessened  by  prohibition.” 

The  political  economists  are  practically 


170 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


unanimous  in  their  reprobation  of  these  laws. 
Adam  Smith  vigorously  protests  against  their 
impertinence  and  presumption.-  Of  sumptu- 
ary laws  it  has  been  said  their  enforcement 
is  exceedingly  difficult,  as  it  is  always  harder 
to  superintend  consumption  than  production. 
“The  latter  is  conducted  in  definite  localities. 
The  former  is  carried  on  in  the  secrecy  of 
a thousand  homes.  Besides,  such  laws  have 
very  often  the  effect  to  make  forbidden  fruit 
all  the  sweeter.’’  Spite  of  the  penalties  at- 
tached to  their  violation,  and  of  redoubled 
measures  of  control,  government  after  gov- 
ernment have  been  compelled  to  admit  their 
failure  in  this  direction.  Laws  of  this  nature 
always  involve  an  abridgement  of  individual 
“ liberty,’’  and  of  the  natural  right  of  every 
man  to  do  what  he  “ will  ’’  with  his  own. 
They  involve  the  assumption,  also,  that  a 
government,  with  the  exercise  of  paternal 
authority  can  judge  better  than  the  citizen 
what  will  best  subserve  his  or  her  welfare, 
in  the  use  of  what  they  have.  “ But  such 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


I7I 


action  belongs  more  properly  to  the  spiritual 
than  to  the  temporal  power.  In  ancient 
life,  where  there  was  a confusion  of  the  two 
powers  in  the  state  system,  sumptuary  legis- 
lation was  more  natural  than  in  the  modern 
world,  where  those  powers  have  been  gener- 
ally, though  imperfectly,  separated.  ’ 

“ I have  learned  to  doubt,"  wrote  Dr. 
Dio  Lewis,  “ whether  law  is  very  potent  in 
the  cure  of  moral  evil.  Force  is  a good 
agency  in  breaking  rocks  and  subduing  wild 
beasts;  but  in  curing  immorality,  in  which 
we  strive  to  regulate  the  action  and  reaction 
of  the  faculties  and  passions  of  the  human 
soul,  force  is  about  as  well  adapted  to  our 
purpose  as  a sledge-hammer  to  regulating 
a watch.  Some  people  seem  to  have  the 
impression  that  society  is  restrained  from 
evil  by  law;  that  our  wives  and  daughters 
are  virtuous  because  there  is  a law  against 
prostitution;  that  our  exemplary  citizens  re- 
frain from  profanity  and  excess  in  gaming 
and  drinking  because  they  are  forbidden  by 


172 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


law;  that  somehow  society  is  kept  in  order 
by  law. 

“It  is  not  denied  that  Massachusetts  has 
to-day  upon  her  statute-books  other  laws  in- 
volving the  same  ^dolation  of  personal  liberty 
as  prohibition;  but  every  law  interfering  with 
personal  habits  and  propensities  has  no  prac- 
tical vitality. 

“ For  example,  prostitution  is  an  enor- 
mous evil;  and  we  have  a severe  statute 
against  it;  but,  as  a matter  of  fact,  if  a house 
of  prostitution  be  conducted  in  a quiet,  un- 
obtrusive way,  the  authorities  cannot  break 
it  up.  If  any  prohibitionist  can  devise  a 
method  by  which  the  authorities  can  break 
up  such  a house,  it  would  be  easy  to  sell 
his  discovery  to  property  holders  of  New 
York  City  for  a hundred  million  of  dollars. 

“Scattered  throughout  this  city  (Boston) 
there  are  unnumbered  rooms  over  stores, 
and  other  places  of  business,  and  in  private 
houses,  occupied  by  persons  who  are  living 
in  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife  without 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


173 


legal  marriage.  There  are  not  two  punish- 
ments for  every  hundred  thousand  violations 
of  the  statutes  against  such  intimacies. 

“ Gambling  is  very  common  in  our  city. 
There  is  a great  number  of  rooms,  or  suites 
of  rooms,  devoted  to  this  practice.  In  club 
houses  and  many  hotels,  gambling  may  be 
found  every  night,  and  often  lasting  all  night. 
Not  a fiftieth  part  of  the  gambling  done  in 
this  cit3^  takes  place  in  gambling  rooms. 
Why  does  it  never  occur  to  anybody  to 
attempt  to  enforce  the  law  against  gambling 
in  our  clubs  and  other  private  houses;  should 
they  attempt  it  they  would  signally  fail.” 

Although  this  was  said  of  New  England, 
it  is  representative  of  the  United  States  and 
the  civilized  world.  A like  picture  might  be 
drawn  of  every  city  in  our  land  and  through- 
out Europe.  Every  candid  and  intelligent 
magistrate,  or  police  official,  in  the  country 
will  admit  that  the  law  never  has,  and  never 
can,  prevent  gaming,  intemperance  or  prosti- 
tution. This  has  been  publicly  acknowledged 


174 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


by  the  most  eminent  men  of  affairs  in  Europe. 
That  it  is  impossible  to  suppress  or  exter- 
minate the  “social  evil”  has  been  demon- 
strated by  Acton,  Tait,  Parent  and  Du  Cha- 
telet.  The  latter  avows  that  “ licensed  houses 
are  the  most  judicious  and  the  most  consist- 
ent with  good  morals.”  The  police  establish- 
ments of  the  continent,  finding  it  impossible 
to  prevent  the  existence  of  houses  of  ill- 
fame,  realized  the  necessity,  not  of  authoriz- 
ing, but  of  licensing  them.  The  vice  is  now 
subject  to  police  supervision  in  Paris,  Toulon, 
Lyons,  Strasburg,  Brest,  Hamburg,  Berlin, 
Vienna,  Naples,  Brussels,  Rheims,  Bor- 
deaux, Marseilles,  Copenhagen,  Madrid, 
Malta,  Lisbon,  Amsterdam  and  St.  Peters- 
burg. A like  policy  obtains  in  Bombay, 
Hong  Kong,  Japan,  New  South  Wales  and 
Cape  Colony. 

On  the  contrary,  England  wages  war 
against  prostitution.  Is  it  with  success? 
No;  in  this  respect  her  cities  are  the  worst 
in  Europe.  In  that  country  42,000  illegitimate 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


175 


children  were  born  in  1851.  It  was  estimated 
that  within  the  five  years  preceding,  212,000 
females  had  strayed  from  the  paths  of  virtue, 
and  thus  taken  the  first  step  in  prostitution. 
In  1832,  London  had  a population  of  1,000,000, 
and  her  known  prostitutes  numbered  10,000. 
Within  her  limits  were  then  3,300  brothels. 
At  that  time,  in  Liverpool,  there  were  5,000 
fallen  women.  Of  houses  of  ill-fame  Dublin 
had  355;  Edinburgh,  219;  Glasgow,  204; 
Liverpool,  770;  Manchester,  308;  Birming- 
ham, 797;  Hull,  175;  Leeds,  179:  Norwich, 
194.  In  England,  in  1865,  there  were  500,000 
prostitutes.  It  has  been  computed  that  the 
unfortunates  number  about  86,000  in  the 
London  of  to-day.  It  is  not  surprising,  then, 
that  the  constabulary  of  Great  Britain  are 
in  despair  of  their  power  for  good  over  this 
evil.  “ Sooner  or  later  (they  realize)  the 
principle  of  individual  liberty  must  triumph, 
and  prostitution  must  become,  under  the 
shadow  of  general  principles,  as  unrestricted 
as  any  other  commerce,  moral  or  immoral.” 


176 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


In  New  York  City,  also,  the  law  has 
always  attempted  to  repress  the  “ social 
evil,”  but  without  avail.  This  has  been 
openly  recognized  by  those  in  authority. 
In  1875,  1876,  and  1877  licensed  prostitution 
was  recommended  by  a committee  of  the 
State  Legislature,  the  Grand  Jury  of  the 
City  and  County  of  New  York,  and  the 
Commissioner  of  Public  Charities  and  Cor- 
rection. The  committee  assumed  “ that 
houses  of  prostitution  must  exist;”  and  its 
members,  therefore,  took  it  upon  themselves 
” to  earnestly  recommend  to  the  Legislature 
the  regulating,  or  permitting,”  or,  as  they 
phrased  it,  ” if  the  word  be  not  deemed 
offensive,  the  licensing  of  prostitution.”  In 
June,  1876,  the  Grand  Jury  of  the  Gourt  of 
General  Sessions  of  the  same  county  and 
state,  made  an  official  presentment  concern- 
ing prostitution,  in  which  they  say  ‘‘that 
however  abhorrent  to  the  views  of  some, 
any  legislation  may  be,  which  appears  to 
legalize  so  great  an  evil,  still  the  fact  must 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


177 


not  be  lost  sight  of  that  it  is  an  evil  im- 
possible to  suppress,  yet  comparatively  easy 
to  regulate  and  circumscribe.”  They  con- 
clude with  a memorial  to  the  Legislature, 
” to  adopt  as  early  as  practicable  some  system 
of  laws  calculated  to  confine  houses  of  prosti- 
tution, in  the  large  cities  of  this  state,  within 
certain  specified  limits,  and  to  subject  them 
at  all  times  to  a careful  and  vigilant  super- 
vision of  the  Boards  of  Health  and  Police.” 

Punitory  laws  never  have,  and  never 
will  cure  the  evils  to  which  society  is  liable. 
” Life  is  sweet,”  some  one  has  said,  and  yet 
even  the  death  penalty  does  not  prevent 
murder.  If  the  menace  of  death  is  not  a 
deterrent,  what  can  be  said  for  lesser  pen- 
alties like  fines  and  imprisonment.  That 
capital  punishment  is  not  a preventive  of 
crime  was  (upon  investigation)  the  convic- 
tion of  Bentham,  Beccaria,  George  Clinton, 
Lord  Brougham,  Judge  J.  W.  Edmunds, 
William  H.  Seward,  Wendell  Phillips,  Douglas 
Jerrold,  Cassius  M.  Clay,  Dr.  Lushington, 


178 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


Edward  Livingston,  Theodore  Parker,  \dce- 
President  Dallas,  DeWitt  Clinton,  \hctor 
Hugo,  Mittermaier,  John  Howard,  Sir  Samuel 
Romilly,  Earl  Russell,  Lord  Houghton,  Lord 
Osborne,  John  Bright,  Lord  Hobart,  Lord 
Kelly,  Frederick  Robertson,  Prof.  Fawcett, 
Charles  Dickens,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Canning, 
Thomas  Jefferson,  and  hundreds  of  other 
able,  thoughtful  and  conscientious  men. 
Their  position  was  not  only  grounded  on 
observation,  but  fortified  by  the  experience 
of  Tuscany,  Spain,  Italy,  Switzerland,  Ba- 
varia, Belgium,  San  Marino,  Denmark,  Nor- 
way, Sweden,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Minne- 
sota, Maine,  Vermont,  and  Rhode  Island. 
“There  is  no  passion  in  the  mind  of  man,’’ 
said  Lord  Bacon,  “ so  weak,  but  it  mates  and 
masters  the  fear  of  death;  and  therefore 
death  is  no  such  terrible  enemy  when  a man 
hath  so  many  attendants  about  him  that  can 
win  the  combat  of  him.  Revenge  triumphs 
over  death;  love  slights  it;  honor  aspireth 
to  it;  grief  fleeth  to  it;  fear  occupieth  it.’’ 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


179 


And  if  “the  fear  of  the  great  future,”  writes 
Bovee,  “ when  painted  with  the  horrors  such 
as  only  a Milton  or  a Pollok  could  depict, 
produces  no  more  marked  effect  on  human 
action;  it  is  hardly  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  the  menace  of  death  by  human  law, 
will  be  very  effective  in  the  repression  of 
crime.” 

The  truth  is  clear  to  Rev.  Octavius  B. 
Frothingham.  He  declares  that  neither 
crime  nor  vice  can  be  prevented,  remedied, 
or  expelled  by  force  of  law.  “Nature  will 
have  her  way,  if  not  by  one  channel,  then 
by  another.  She  will  plunge  underground, 
and  come  up  in  unexpected  spots.  Cunning 
comes  to  her  assistance.  She  makes  alliance 
with  subterfuge  and  deceit.  She  is  sly,  swift, 
ubiquitous.  Disappearing  in  New  York,  she 
turns  up  in  Philadelphia.  Expelled  from 
the  cities,  she  takes  refuge  in  the  towns; 
banished  from  the  towns,  she  finds  coverts 
in  the  cities;  hiding  in  the  dens  and  slums, 
creeping  into  the  lanes,  mingling  with  the 


i8o 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


crowd  of  harmless  things,  sheltering  herself 
behind  law.  She  is  a Proteus,  able  to  take 
on  every  possible  shape  of  innocence.  Re- 
fuse her  brandy,  she  will  take  opium,  mor- 
phine, ether,  tobacco,  strong  coffee,  in  quan- 
tities equivalent  to  the  stimulant  desired. 
You  fancy  the  community  becoming  tem- 
perate in  one  respect,  and  find  it  becoming 
intemperate  in  another.  Opium  eaters  multi- 
ply as  dram-drinkers  decrease.  The  pro- 
pensity is  alive  still,  and  perhaps  provoked 
to  activity  by  the  efforts  made  to  suppress 
it.  The  natural  appetite  being  reinforced  by 
anger,  spite,  the  spirit  of  resistance  to  perse- 
cution, which  grows  dogged  and  stubborn, 
fortifying  the  sense  of  injustice  by  the  pride 
of  self-will. 

“As  if  impatient  at  the  slowness  of  the 
converting  process,  weary  of  the  task  of  plant- 
ing vice  out,  of  choking  the  weeds  of  instinct 
with  the  flowers  of  grace,  the  church  under- 
took, with  violent  hand,  to  pull  up  the  weeds 
by  main  force.  Instead  of  abolishing  the 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  l8l 

hydra  by  a beautiful  law  of  evolution,  which 
should  create  a series  of  nobler  growths;  it 
undertook  to  cut  off  the  poisonous  heads, 
one  by  one.  It  took  boys  and  girls,  at  the 
tenderest  age,  out  of  the  world,  confined 
them  in  religious  houses,  refused  them  the-r 
joy  of  the  flesh,  and  the  joy  of  the  eyes,  and 
the  pride  of  life,  barred  the  gates  of  every 
terrestrial  garden,  mortified  their  desires, 
kept  them  occupied  with  prayers  and  con- 
templations, and  so  tried  to  starve  nature  to 
death. 

“ Christianity,  was  as  consistent,  tried  to 
repress  the  disposition  to  unbelief,  in  its 
opinion  the  most  fruitful  source  of  vice. 
The  disposition  to  unbelief  was  regarded  as 
the  deadliest  symptom  of  the  natural,  uncon- 
verted heart.  To  counteract  it  by  an  opposite 
disposition  to  belief  was  tedious  and  difficult, 
and  the  method  of  repression  was  resorted 
to.  The  civic  power  was  enlisted  in  the 
work  of  exterminating  pernicious  error. 
Tribunals  were  created,  laws  were  passed. 


i82 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


judges  and  executioners  were  appointed, 
penalties  were  devised,  heretical  schools  were 
broken  up,  heretical  books  were  burned, 
heretical  teachers  were  banished,  silenced, 
incarcerated,  consigned  to  the  flames.  Whole 
provinces  were  devastated,  towns  were  des- 
troyed, populations  turned  adrift  to  perish; 
the  entire  field  of  unorthodox  thought  was 
ploughed  over  and  sown  with  salt.  And 
what  was  the  result  of  the  method,  carried 
out  on  this  vast  scale,  with  full  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  powers — the  sacred  and  the  secular 
authorities  combining,  the  sympathy  of  the 
Christian  world  aiding,  no  public  opinion 
opposing,  the  resources  of  wealth  conspiring 
with  the  resources  of  fanaticism,  to  make 
the  policy  of  suppression  effective  ? The 
issue  is  familiar  to  all  who  care  to  know  the 
truth,  from  the  reports  of  historians,  who 
have  made  it  their  business  to  ascertain  and 
tell  the  facts.  They  certainly  do  not  bear 
out  the  conclusion  that  the  method  of  sup- 
pression is  wise,  or  even  practical.  On  the 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  1 83 

contrary,  they  suggest  the  opinion  that  it 
is  impractical  as  it  is  unwise.  The  failure 
of  the  method  was  so  disastrous  that  it  quite 
defeated  the  ends. 

“If  one  thing  is  demonstrated  by  human 
history,  it  is  this: — the  attempt  to  suppress 
human  nature,  under  any  form,  so  it  be 
nature  that  is  suppressed,  is  futile.  The 
old  proverbs,  which  say,  ‘ Drive  nature  out 
at  the  door,  and  she  comes  in  at  the  window;’ 
‘You  cannot  expel  nature  with  a fork;’  hold 
out  a truth  that  is  for  all  time. 

Deeply  rooted  propensities,  habits  which 
have  become  a second  nature,  cannot  be 
thus  dealt  with.  No  Hercules’  club  will 
avail  to  kill  the  vital  principle  that  grows 
venomous  heads  faster  than  they  can  be 
bruised.  The  effort  to  suppress  nature  by 
violent  measures,  is  always  followed,  always 
produces  a reaction,  that  is  exactly  propor- 
tioned in  strength  to  the  effort,  and  fairly  bal- 
ances it.  Healthy  progress  Is  slow,  gradual, 
measured,  according  to  the  sure  conditions 


184 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


of  cause  and  effect.  It  consists  of  a long 
line  of  close  sequences,  knit  together,  not 
mechanically,  like  a chain,  but  organically, 
like  a muscle  or  a nerve.  Every  inch  of 
growth  implies  a preceding  inch  of  growth; 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  jump  or  leap  from 
point  to  point.  You  do  not  make  the  elastic 
band  longer  by  stretching  it;  you  but  loosen 
the  cohesion  of  its  parts;  the  strain  being 
relaxed,  the  band  resumes  its  first  condition; 
the  strain  being  continued,  the  band  looses 
its  elasticity  and  breaks.  There  is  no  more 
power  than  there  is.” 

M.  Guizot,  statesman  and  historian, 
thought  it  a gross  delusion  to  believe  in 
the  sovereign  power  of  political  machinery. 
Every  day  discloses  a failure,  every  day 
there  reappears  the  belief  that  it  needs  but 
an  act  of  some  legislative  body  and  a corps 
of  officials  to  effect  any  purpose.  The  faith 
of  mankind  is  nowhere  better  seen.  Dis- 
appointment has  been  preached  from  the 
first:  “Put  not  thy  trust  in  legislation.”  Yet 


LKGISLA  i lVE  EXORCISM. 


185 


the  trust  in  legislation  seems  scarcely  dimin- 
ished. Is  it  not  time  to  reject  the  law  as 
a social  panacea?  We  should  now  realize 
that  measures  are  usually  quite  different  in 
effect  from  what  has  been  expected.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  number 
of  legislative  disappointments  in  English  and 
American  history;  “or  the  amount  of  harm 
which  has  been  inflicted  on  society  by  abor- 
tive attempts  at  statesmanship.”  History 
demonstrates  the  incapacity  of  law-givers. 
Says  Mr.  Jensen,  “ From  the  statute  of 
Merton  (20  Henry  III.)  to  the  end  of  1872, 
there  had  been  passed  18,  no  public  acts, 
of  which  he  estimated  that  four-fifths  had 
been  partially  or  wholly  repealed.”  And 
Herbert  Spencer  estimated  a few  years  ago 
that  “ in  the  last  three  sessions  of  the 
English  parliament,  there  have  been  totally 
repealed  650  acts,  belonging  to  the  present 
reign  alone.” 

Buckle  said,  in  this  connection,  every 
great  reform  has  consisted  “ not  in  doing 


I 86  LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 

something  new,  but  in  undoing  something 
old.  The  most  valuable  additions  made  to 
legislation  have  been  enactments  destruc- 
tive of  preceding  legislation,  and  the  best 
laws  which  have  been  passed  have  been 
those  by  which  some  former  laws  were  re- 
pealed. . . . We  owe  no  thanks  to  law- 

givers as  a class;  for,  since  the  most  valu- 
able improvements  in  legislation  are  those 
which  subvert  preceding  legislation,  it  is 
clear  that  the  balance  of  good  cannot  be 
on  their  side.  It  is  clear  that  the  progress 
of  civilization  cannot  be  due  to  those  who, 
on  the  most  important  subjects,  have  done 
so  much  harm  that  their  successors  are  con- 
sidered benefactors,  simply  because  they 
reverse  their  policy,  and  thus  restored  affairs 
to  the  state  in  which  they  would  have  re- 
mained, if  politicians  had  allowed  them  to 
run  on  in  the  course  which  the  wants  of 
society  required.” 

In  the  name  of  ‘‘liberty  and  equality,”  a 
brave  battle  has  been  fought  for  individuality. 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


187 


Unjust  and  unwise  interference  by  the  state 
has  been  ably  resisted.  It  is  demanded  that 
private  judgment  be  released  from  the  em- 
brace of  authority.  The  truth  is,  one  man 
has  no  natural  right  to  make  laws  for  an- 
other. True,  he  may  repel  another,  when 
his  own  rights  are  infringed,  but  he  has  no 
right  to  govern  him.  The  individual  is 
sovereign  merely  over  himself,  and  not  over 
his  fellow-man. 

The  greatest  minds  now  insist  an  indi- 
vidual will  more  freely  act,  not  only  for  the 
furtherance  of  personal  interests,  but  also 
for  collective  interests,  without  being  con- 
strained thereto  by  an  external  power. 
Whenever  room  is  to  be  made,  they  say, 
for  the  advance  of  society,  public  authority 
must  retire  within  its  narrowest  jurisdiction; 
yielding,  because  of  its  impracticability,  all 
control  over  concerns  purely  personal.  “ Who 
remembers  having  done  anything,  or  having 
refrained  from  doing  anything,  on  account 
of  the  statutes?  If  we  could  realize  how 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


little  civil  law  contributes  to  the  good  con- 
duct and  well-being  of  society,  our  interest 
in  legislators  would  be  greatly  lessened.  Of 
the  millions  upon  millions  of  acts  of  kind- 
ness and  justice  which  go  to  make  up  civil- 
ized life,  I take  it  that  nine  in  ten  would 
not  be  performed  at  all,  if  they  were  required 
by  law. 

John  Stuart  Mill  has  clearly  defined  the 
limit  of  individual  “sovereignty” — as  it  is 
termed — and  where  the  authority  of  society 
should  begin.  “ Each  will  receive  its  proper 
share,  if  each  has  that  which  more  particu- 
larly concerns  it.  To  individuality  should 
belong  the  part  of  life  in  which  it  is  chiefly 
the  individual  that  is  interested;  to  society, 
the  part  which  chiefly  interests  society. 

“ The  acts  of  an  individual  may  be  hurtful 
to  others,  or  wanting  in  due  consideration 
for  their  welfare,  without  going  the  length 
of  violating  their  constituted  rights.  The 
offender  may  then  be  justly  punished  by 
opinion,  though  not  by  law.  As  soon  as  any 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM.  1 89 

part  of  a person’s  conduct  affects  prejudici- 
ally the  interests  of  others,  society  has  juris- 
diction over  it,  and  the  question  whether 
the  general  welfare  will  or  will  not  be  pro- 
moted by  interfering  with  it,  becomes  an 
open  one.  But  there  is  no  room  for  enter- 
taining any  such  question,  when  a person’s 
conduct  affects  the  interest  of  no  person 
besides  himself,  or  need  not  affect  them  un- 
less they  like,  all  the  persons  concerned 
being  of  full  age,  and  with  the  ordinary 
amount  of  understanding.  In  all  such  cases 
there  should  be  perfect  freedom,  legal  and 
social,  to  do  the  action  and  stand  the  con- 
sequences.” 

Everybody  agrees  with  this  proposition,  in 
the  abstract.  At  this  period  of  time,  nobody 
would  dispute  “personal  liberty,”  as  a “glit- 
tering generality.”  People  are  too  smart 
for  that.  It  would  be  impolite  and  unfashion- 
able. They  would  agree  with  you,  perhaps, 
that  “personal  liberty”  is  the  source  of  all 
progress,  the  lever  of  all  conquests,  the  in- 


I <50  LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 

spiration  of  all  achievements.  “ Tlie  great, 
vital,  pivotal  fact  of  human  life;  all  progress 
and  all  happiness  begin  and  end  in  personal 
freedom.”  O yes,  they  will  readily  agree 
with  the  rhetoric  involved.  ‘‘The  prize,  the 
precious  jewel  of  the  ages,  is  personal  liberty. 
It  has  no  equivalents.  Untold  wealth,  a 
mine  of  diamonds,  a palace,  are  baubles  by 
the  side  of  personal  liberty.  We  recognize 
the  supreme  importance  of  this  principle. 
We  are  willing  that  all  men  should  be  free — 
if  they  will  only  do  what  is  best  for  them. 
We  rejoice  in  the  utmost  liberty  of  opinion 
and  action — if  people  will  only  do  and  say 
what  is  right.” 

Thus  Is  ‘‘  freedom  ” trespassed  upon,  under 
pretence  that  is  for  the  good  of  the  man 
or  men  whose  rights  are  violated.  Such 
was  probably  the  pretext  for  every  tyrannical 
invasion  of  popular  rights  known  to  history. 
Thus  was  it  quaintly  put  by  Dio  Lewis: 
‘‘The  Inquisition  believed  in  the  perfect 
liberty  of  all  men  to  be  Catholics,  but  if 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


IQI 


they  caught  a man  with  other  notions  about 
salvation,  they  put  a thumb-screw  on  him. 
Our  Puritan  fathers  believed  in  personal 
freedom  as  no  other  men  ever  did.  They  left 
their  homes,  crossed  a stormy  ocean,  and 
braved  a thousand  dangers,  that  they  might 
be  free  to  think  and  say  what  they  pleased. 
And  they  were  perfectly  willing  that  all  who 
came  along  might  think  and  say  what  they 
pleased,  unless,  as  sometimes  unfortunately 
happened,  the  other  men  said  and  thought 
things  which  conflicted  with  the  things  which 
the  fathers  thought  and  said.  They  some- 
times came  across  a Quaker,  whose  views  did 
not  seem  quite  the  thing,  and  they  hung  him. 
Our  New  England  fathers  believed  in  ‘religi- 
ous liberty.’  Indeed,  ‘religious  liberty’  was 
their  constant  boast;  but  if  a man  did  not 
believe  in  hell,  they  would  not  let  him  testify 
in  court.  . . . But  our  fathers  were 

always  very  kind  about  it;  they  said  he  was 
at  liberty,  perfect  liberty,  at  any  time  to  believe 
in  hell,  and  then  he  might  swear  a blue  streak.” 


IQ2 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


What  is  really  meant  by  this  definition 
of  “ pei'sonal  liberty”  is  the  absolute  right 
of  every  individual  that  every  other  individual 
shall  act,  in  every  respect,  exactly  as  he 
ought;  “that  whosoever  fails  thereof,  in  the 
smallest  particular,  violates  my  social  right 
and  entitles  me  to  demand  of  the  legislature 
the  removal  of  the  grievance.”  “This  doc- 
trine,” continued  Mill,  “ascribes  to  all  man- 
kind a vested  interest  in  each  other’s  moral, 
intellectual,  and  physical  perfection,  to  be 
defined  by  each  claimant,  according  to  his 
own  standard.” 

Of  this  class  of  men  Dr.  Lewis  well  said: 
“They  consider  themselves  born  to  control 
other  men.  They  are  ever  inquiring,  ‘What 
ought  this  man  to  do?’  and  if  that  man 
refuses  to  do  it,  ‘How  can  we  compel  him?’ 
They  proceed  thus:  ‘ Resolved,  That  the 
righteous  should  govern  the  world.  Re- 
solved, That  we  are  the  righteous.’  ” 

In  what  language  can  I fitly  designate 
a principle  of  action  so  impertinent  and 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


193 


presumptious?  Who  can  deny  the  moral 
“liberty”  of  his  fellow  creature,  as  an  abstract 
proposition?  Is  not  the  moral  equality,  or 
independence  of  man  one  of  his  essential 
rights?  Neither  one,  nor  any  number  of 
persons,  is  warranted  in  saying  to  another 
of  mature  years,  what  the  latter  shall,  or 
shall  not  do  with  his  life  for  his  own  benefit. 
“He  is  most  deeply  interested  in  his  own 
well-being;  the  interest  which  another  person 
can  have  in  it  is  trifling,  compared  with  that 
which  he  himself  has.”  It  is  time  for  society 
to  distinguish,  sharply,  between  the  province 
of  morality  and  that  of  legislation.  With 
the  same  end  in  view,  perhaps,  yet  they 
should  differ  widely  in  extent.  Admit  that 
morals  and  the  law  have  the  same  center, 
they  have  not  the  same  circumference. 
There  may  be  a moral  guide  to  the  conduct 
of  an  individual,  through  all  the  details  of 
life,  through  all  the  relationships  of  society; 
but  legislation  cannot  be  this,  and  if  it 
could,  it  ought  not  to  exercise  a continued 


194 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


and  direct  interference  with  the  conduct  of 
men.  There  are  many  acts  useful  to  the 
community  which  the  legislator  ought  never 
to  command ; so  are  there  many  hurtful 
acts,  which  he  ought  not  to  forbid.  There  is 
certainly  a broad  distinction  between  moral 
and  legal  rights.  For  instance,  “a  man  has 
no  moral  right  to  hate  his  wife,  but  he  has 
a perfect  legal  right  to  hate  her.  A man 
has  no  moral  right  to  foreclose  a mortgage 
on  a sick  widow’s  home,  and  turn  her  and 
her  children  out  in  the  snow,  but  he  has  a 
perfect  legal  right  to  do  it.  A man  has  no 
moral  right  to  make  a glutton  of  himself, 
destroy  his  usefulness,  and  thus  throw  his 
wife  and  children  on  the  town,  but  he  has 
a perfect  legal  right  to  do  it.”  A man  has 
no  moral  right  to  drink  rum,  but  he  has  a 
perfect  legal  right  to  do  so.  W hat  actions, 
then,  may  be  legally  punished  as  offenses? 
“What  a question,”  I hear  some  one  exclaim; 
“are  not  all  men  agreed  upon  it?  Do  you 
ask  us  to  prove  an  acknowledged  truth.” 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


195 


I answer  in  words  of  the  great  Jeremy  Bent- 
ham:  “ Be  it  so.  But  on  what  is  founded 
that  agreement?  Demand  of  each  his 
reasons.  You  will  find  a strange  diversity 
of  interest  and  principles.  You  will  find  it 
not  only  among  the  people,  but  among  phil- 
osophers. . . . The  agreement  which  you 

see  is  founded  only  on  prejudices;  and  these 
prejudices  vary,  according  to  the  times  and 
places,  according  to  opinions  and  customs. 
. . . People  have  always  said  that  such 

an  action  is  an  offense.  Such  is  the  guide 
of  the  multitude,  and  even  of  the  legislator. 
But  if  usage  has  made  innocent  actions 
crimes ; if  it  makes  venial  offenses  appear 
heavy,  and  heavy  offences  light;  if  it  has 
varied  everywhere,  it  is  clear  that  we  must 
subject  it  to  some  rule. 

Vices  are  not  rightly  punishable  by  law. 
They  are  amenable  to  education  only.  Should 
A.  assist  B.  to  indulge  in  a vice,  and  A.  uses 
no  fraud  or  coercion,  and  B.  is  compos  mentis, 
A.  is  not  guilty  of  a crime,  in  the  proper 


iq6  legislative  exorcism. 

sense.  Suppose  A.  were  a cook,  who  com- 
pounds for  B.  rich  and  delicious  dishes,  and 
of  which  B.  partakes  to  such  an  extent  that 
he  sickens  and  dies,  A.  is  not  guilty  of  a 
crime.  Neither  is  B.’s  indulgence  in  the 
strong  food  or  strong  drink  a crime  punish- 
able by  law,  only  a vice  amenable  to  dis- 
cretion and  judgment. 

Correctly  considered,  then,  a crime  is  an 
act  which  one  man,  with  “ malice  prepense,” 
commits  upon  the  person  or  property  of 
another,  without  that  other’s  consent.  Crime 
may  be  subject  to  law.  A vice,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  any  act  or  passion  in  which  a person 
may  indulge  himself:  malice,  hypocris}',  pride, 
envy,  hatred,  avarice,  ambition,  profanity, 
falsehood,  indolence,  cowardice,  drunkenness, 
gluttony,  tyranny,  fanaticism,  extravagance, 
etc.,  etc.  Unless  this  distinction  be  recognized 
by  the  law,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  indi- 
vidual right,  liberty  or  property,  “ no  such 
thing  as  the  right  of  one  man  to  the  control  of 
his  own  person  and  property,  and  the  corres- 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


197 


ponding  and  co-equal  right  of  another  man  to 
the  control  of  his  own  person  and  property.” 

An  eminent  and  respected  physician  once 
said  to  an  enlightened  audience:  “ Not  a per- 
son before  me,  but  has  suffered  from  vices;  in- 
deed, that  is  what  we  mean  by  the  imperfec- 
tion of  human  nature.  When  we  depart  from 
perfection  it  is  a vice.  Everybody  is  guilty  of 
vices.  The  people  before  me,  forty  years  old, 
should  not  be  so  old  at  fifty  or  sixty.  Their 
teeth  are  decayed,  and  they  have  imperfect 
digestion.  They  do  not  enjoy  the  full  and 
happy  play  of  all  their  powers  and  faculties, 
and  the  greater  part  of  this  waste  comes 
from  vices.  There  are  certain  secret  vices 
which  cannot  be  publicly  named,  which  are 
doing  more  to  break  down  our  vital  force, 
make  us  prematurely  old,  and  fetter  our 
souls,  than  all  the  crimes  committed  in  the 
country,  and  the  legislature  can  do  nothing 
to  cure  them. 

“ Without  doubt,  gluttony  is  the  most 
destructive  of  all  our  vices.  It  obtains 


igS  legislativf;  exorcism. 

among  all  classes,  all  ages,  and  both  sexes. 
Eminent  medical  men,  in  England  and 
America,  declare  that  strong  food  can  count 
ten  victims,  where  strong  drink  counts  one. 

“Tobacco  is  doing  more  injury  to  the 
minds  and  bodies  of  our  nation  than  all 
the  murder,  theft,  burglary,  and  arson,  and 
yet  the  legislature  can  do  nothing  to  cure 
the  tobacco  curse.” 

Dr.  Lewis  wisely  continues:  “It  is  not 
often  possible  to  say  of  those  acts  that  are 
called  vices,  that  they  are  really  vices  ex- 
cept in  degree.  That  is,  it  is  difficult  to 
say  of  any  actions,  or  courses  of  action, 
that  are  called  vices,  that  they  really  would 
have  been  vices,  if  they  had  stopped  short 
of  a certain  point.  The  question  of  vice 
or  virtue,  therefore,  in  all  such  cases,  is  a 
question  of  quantity  and  degree,  and  not 
of  the  intrinsic  character  of  any  single  act, 
by  itself.  This  fact  adds  to  the  difficulty, 
not  to  say  the  impossibility,  of  any  one’s 
— except  each  individual  for  himself — draw- 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


199 


ing  any  accurate  line,  or  anything  like  an 
accurate  line,  between  virtue  and  vice;  that 
is,  of  telling  where  virtue  ends  and  vice 
begins.  And  this  is  another  reason  why 
this  whole  question  of  virtue  and  vice  should 
be  left  for  each  person  to  settle  for  him- 
self. Vices  are  usually  pleasurable,  at  least 
for  the  time  being,  and  often  do  not  dis- 
close themselves  as  vices,  by  their  effects, 
until  they  have  been  practiced  for  many 
years,  or  perhaps  for  a life-time.  To 
many,  perhaps  most,  of  those  who  practice 
them,  they  do  not  disclose  themselves  as 
vices,  at  all  during  life.  Virtues,  on  the 
other  hand,  often  appear  so  harsh  and 
rugged,  they  require  the  sacrifice  of  so 
much  present  happiness,  at  least,  and  the 
results  which  alone  prove  them  to  be  vir- 
tues, are  so  often  distant  and  obscure,  in 
fact  so  absolutely  invisible  to  the  minds  of 
many,  especially  of  the  young,  that,  from 
the  very  nature  of  things,  there  can  be  no 
universal  or  even  general  knowledge  that 


200 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


they  are  virtues.  In  truth,  the  studies  of 
profound  philosophers  have  been  expended 
— if  not  wholly  in  vain,  certainly  with  very 
small  results — in  efforts  to  draw  the  lines 
between  virtues  and  vices. 

“ If  then,  it  be  so  difficult,  so  nearly  im- 
possible, in  most  cases,  to  determine  what 
is  and  what  is  not,  vice;  and  especially  if 
it  be  so  difficult  in  nearly  all  cases  to  de- 
termine where  virtue  ends  and  where  vice 
begins;  and  if  these  questions,  which  no  one 
can  really  and  truly  determine  for  anybody 
but  himself,  are  not  to  be  left  open  and 
free  for  experiment  by  all,  each  person 
is  deprived  of  the  highest  of  all  his  rights 
as  a human  being;  to  wit:  his  right  to  inquire, 
investigate,  reason,  try  experiments,  judge 
and  ascertain  for  himself,  vdiat  is,  to  him, 
virtue,  and  what  is,  to  him,  vice;  in  other 
words,  what,  on  the  whole,  conduces  to  his 
happiness,  and  what,  on  the  vdiole,  tends  to 
his  unhappiness.  If  this  great  right  is  not  to 
be  left  free  and  open  to  all,  then  each  man’s 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


201 


whole  right  as  a reasoning  human  being, 
to  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  is 
denied  him.”  “ It  is  now  obvious,  for  the 
reasons  already  given,  that  government 
would  be  utterly  impracticable,  if  it  were  to 
take  cognizance  of  vices  and  punish  them 
as  crimes.  Every  human  being  has  his,  or 
her,  vices.  Nearly  all  men  have  a great 
many.  And  they  are  of  all  kinds:  physio- 
logical, mental,  emotional,  religious,  social, 
commercial,  industrial,  economical,  etc.  If 
government  is  to  take  cognizance  of  any  of 
these  vices,  and  punish  them  as  crimes,  then, 
to  be  consistent,  it  must  take  cognizance  of 
all  and  punish  all  impartially.  The  con- 
sequences would  be,  that  everybody  would 
be  in  prison  for  his,  or  her,  vices.  There 
would  be  no  one  left  to  lock  the  doors  upon 
those  within.  In  fact,  courts  enough  could 
not  be  found  to  try  the  offenders,  nor  prisons 
enough  built  to  hold  them.  All  human  in- 
dustry in  the  acquisition  of . knowledge,  and 
even  in  acquiring  the  means  of  subsistence. 


202 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


would  be  arrested;  we  should  be  all  under 
constant  trial  or  imprisonment  for  our  vices. 
But  even  if  it  were  possible  to  imprison  all 
the  vicious,  our  knowledge  of  human  nature 
tells  us  that,  as  a general  rule,  they  would 
be  far  more  vicious  in  prison  than  they  ever 
have  been  out  of  it.  A government  that 
shall  punish  all  vices  impartially,  is  so  obvi- 
ously an  impossibility,  that  nobody  was  ever 
found,  or  ever  will  be  found,  foolish  enough 
to  propose  it.  The  most  that  any  one  pro- 
poses is,  that  government  shall  punish  some 
one,  or,  at  most  a few,  of  what  he  esteems 
the  grossest  of  them.” 

‘‘  But  this  discrimination  is  an  utterly 
absurd,  illogical  and  tyrannical  one.  What 
right  has  any  body  of  men  to  say,  ‘ The 
vices  of  other  men  we  will  punish,  but  our 
own  vices  nobody  shall  punish  ? We  will 
restrain  other  men  from  seeking  their  own 
happiness,  according  to  their  own  notions 
of  it;  but  nobody  shall  restrain  us  from 
seeking  our  own  happiness,  according  to  our 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


203 


notion  of  it.  We  will  restrain  other  men 
from  acquiring  any  experimental  knowledge 
of  what  is  conducive  or  necessary  to  their 
own  happiness;  but  nobody  shall  restrain 
us  from  acquiring  an  experimental  knowl- 
edge of  what  is  conducive  or  necessary  to 
our  own  happiness.”  Nobody  but  knaves 
and  blockheads  ever  think  of  any  such 
absurd  assumptions  as  these.  And  yet, 
evidently,  it  is  only  upon  such  assumptions 
that  anybody  can  claim  the  right  to  pun- 
ish the  vices  of  others,  and  at  the  same 
time  claim  exemption  from  punishment  for 
his  own.  The  greatest  of  all  crimes  are 
the  wars  that  are  carried  on  by  govern- 
ments to  plunder,  destro}^  and  enslave  man- 
kind.” 

It  has  been  asserted  that  gambling  is 
a vice.  I deny  that  such  is  the  case. 
The  proposition  cannot  be  established,  as 
an  absolute  principle.  If  a man  chooses  to 
risk  his  money,  on  a game  of  cards,  he 
has  a perfect  right  to  do  so,  in  the  ab- 


204 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


stract,  and  no  man,  or  any  body  of  men, 
has  a right  to  forbid  him.  “ It  is  his  money, 
and  he  has  a right  to  do  what  he  chooses 
with  it.  He  has  a legal  right  to  put  it  in 
a gun  and  shoot  it  away,  or  burn  it  up,  or 
risk  it  on  a game  of  chance,  or  make  any 
other  disposition  of  it,  and  no  man,  or  body 
of  men,  has  a right  to  interfere.”  For  my 
purpose,  as  a question  of  law,  the  real  ques- 
tion is  whether  a man  may  dispose  of  his 
own  as  he  chooses?  If  so,  then  he  has  a 
right  to  wager  it  on  a game  of  cards,  or 
at  dice;  and  it  is  absurd  to  treat  as  criminal 
another  man  who  may  join  in  with  him  in 
gaming,  as  an  antagonist.  In  other  \vords, 
“ If  John  has  at  any  time  or  in  any  place, 
the  right  to  wager  his  money  on  a game 
of  chance,  then  it  is  absurd  to  treat  as 
criminal  the  helping  John  to  do  what  he 
has  a right  to  do.  If  one  participant  in  a 
transaction  is  guilty  of  crime,  so  is  the  other. 
But  if  one  participant  is  guiltless,  then  the 
other  is  guiltless.” 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


205 


The  keepers  of  gambling  resorts  are  de- 
nounced, as  though  they  were  responsible 
for  the  gambling  propensity  in  mankind. 
Now,  resorts  for  gambling  do  not  cause  the 
passion.  It  is  a tendency  to  which  all  men 
are  prone,  more  or  less.  “The  essential 
fact  is  the  existence  of  this  passion.  There 
can  never  be  any  great  difficulty  in  obtain- 
ing the  means  for  its  gratification.”  If  not 
one  way,  then  in  another.  If  at  all,  at- 
tack the  principle,  in  whatever  guise  or  by 
whomsoever  practiced.  If  some  methods 
are  denounced,  then  should  all  methods  be 
denounced.  If  those  who  furnish  certain 
“ means  to  the  end  ” are  to  be  punished  as 
criminals,  then  should  all  persons  who  fur- 
nish any  “means  to  the  end.”  But  to 
punish  any  such  person  is  erroneous  and 
very  short  sighted;  for  the  primary  cause 
of  the  trouble,  if  such  it  be,  is  the  desire 
for  gaming.  It  is  impossible  to  prevent 
its  gratification.  As  wisely  attempt  “ to 
make  one’s  hair  white  or  black  ” by  virtue 


2o6 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


of  “ the  statute  in  such  cases  made  and 
provided.” 

Suppose  the  law  efficacious,  with  what 
consistency  does  our  jurisprudence  make 
gambling  a crime?  In  general,  at  common 
law,  all  games  are  lawful,  unless  fraud  has 
been  practiced.  Each  of  the  parties  must 
have  a right  to  the  money  or  thing  played 
for.  He  must  give  his  free  and  full  con- 
sent, and  the  play  must  be  conducted 
fairly.  The  mutual  promises  of  the  parties 
to  the  wager  are  held  a sufficient  con- 
sideration. A large  number  of  such  actions 
have  been  sustained  by  the  courts  of  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States. 

Eor  example,  it  was  held  that  a wager 
of  fifty  guineas  by  one  of  the  litigants  that 
an  appeal  from  a decree  of  Chancery 
would  be  reversed  by  the  House  of  Lords, 
was  not,  of  itself,  void,  there  being  no 
charge  of  fraud.  So,  wagers  as  to  the 
time  when  a railroad  would  be  completed; 
or,  as  to  the  name  of  a person  whom  one 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


207 


of  the  parties  had  seen;  or,  as  to  the  age 
•of  one  of  the  parties;  or,  upon  the  price 
of  an  article  of  commerce;  or,  as  to  who 
would  die  first,  of  two  persons  not  privy 
to  the  wager;  or,  as  to  whether  A.  would 
hit  a target;  or,  upon  foot  or  horse  races; 
were  held  valid.  Indeed,  the  tendency  of 
the  courts  to  discourage  wagers  of  every 
nature  is  relatively  of  recent  date.  In 
many  of  the  United  States,  the  doctrine 
has  been  abrogated  by  statute.  Texas, 
Delaware,  California,  and  some  other  states 
still  adhere  to  the  English  rule. 

Some  of  the  judgments  in  England  were 
rendered  by  the  greatest  of  judicial  minds: 
Lord  Mansfield,  Lord  Holt,  Lord  Hard- 
wicke  and  Lord  Kenyon.  In  the  language 
of  Lord  Holt:  “When  considered  in  itself, 
there  is  nothing  in  a wager,  contrary  to 
natural  equity,  and  the  contract  will  be  con- 
sidered as  a reciprocal  gift,  which  the  parties 
make  of  the  thing  played  for,  under  certain 
conditions,”  Lord  Mansfield  laid  it  down, 


208 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


that  wagers  are  actionable;  “and  that  the 
restraints  imposed  on  certain  species, 
acts  of  parliament,  are  exceptions  to  the 
general  rule,  and  prove  it.”  And  Lord 
Kenyon  declared  in  Good  vs.  Elliott;  “ Be- 
ing bound  by  former  decisions,  not  having 
the  power  to  alter  the  law,  not  finding 
any  one  case  against  the  legality  of  wagers 
in  general,  and  finding  cases  without  num- 
ber, wherein  wagers  have  been  held  to  be 
good,  and  that  the  payment  of  them  may 
be  enforced,  I adjudge  the  wager  in  the 
present  case  good  at  common  law.”  It 
was  a wager  that  A.  had  purchased  a cer- 
tain wagon  of  B. 

The  source  of  our  jurisprudence  is  the 
common  law  of  England.  Gambling  was 
not  a crime  under  this  system,  and  here  it 
would  enforce  the  contract  of  wager.  I 
therefore  denounce  as  incongruous  and  irra- 
tional a statute  which  seeks  to  punish  the 
wagerer  as  a criminal. 

Crime,  at  common  law  is  something 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


209 


essential,  so,  in  its  very  nature;  grounded 
in  the  Mosaic  decalogue  and  the  reason 
of  things:  murder,  mayhem,  adultery,  rob- 
bery, theft,  arson.  The  wager  is  akin  to 
none  of  these,  nor  does  it  come  within 
their  spirit.  The  common  law  branded  as 
a criminal  him  only  whom  God  had  thus 
branded.  The  wagerer  was  not  of  the 
number. 

In  a word,  is  gambling  malum  in  se?  In 
answer,  the  common  conviction  of  men  has 
never  so  regarded  it.  The  common  law 
has  ever  recognized  a boundary  line  which 
separates  the  mala  in  se  from  the  mala 
prohibita.  In  law,  a thing  is  malum  in  se 
when  absolutely  evil  in  itself;  “not,  indeed, 
in  a philosophical  sense,  ’ says  the  eminent 
lawyer,  James  C.  Carter,  “but  absolutely, 
according  to  the  universal  conviction,  in 
the  political  society  which  so  views  it;  and 
mala  prohibita  are  those  things,  otherwise 
innocent  or  indifferent,  which  the  legislative 
power,  having  control  over  the  subject,  may 


210 


LEGISLATIVE  EXORCISM. 


declare  to  be  offenses.”  Although  not  77ialum 
iTt  se,  gambling  may  be  77iahi77i  p7'ohibittmi. 
If  the  latter,  then  it  becomes  merely  a 
question  of  public  policy  whether  or  not 
the  state  shall  license  gambling,  subject  to 
such  conditions  as  the  police  power  might 
impose.  At  any  rate,  to  the  extent  that 
government  is  a moral  entity,  it  cannot 
rightfully  punish  gambling  as  being  bad 
in  itself. 


“tTbe  Iking  is  S>eab— Xong 
Xive  tbe  Iking.” 


(211) 


CHAPTER  V. 

IF^mg  is  DeaD— Xong  Xiv?e  tbe  Iking.” 

Expressive  was  the  coronation  cere- 
mony in  the  ancient  Dukedom  of 
Carinthia.  The  ducal  candidate,  in  a peas- 
ant’s garb,  and  with  head  proudly  erect, 
walked  towards  the  marble  throne  of  his 
ancestors.  But  upon  it  was  already  seated 
a peasant,  attended  by  the  black  bull  and 
the  lean  horse — those  sad  and  severe  sym- 
bols of  his  class.  Then  was  commenced 
between  them  this  rude  dialogue: 

Peasant: — “Who  so  proudly  dares  enter 
here?  Is  he  a just  judge?  Has  he  the 
good  of  the  country  at  heart?” 

Duke: — “ He  is  and  he  will.” 

(213) 


214 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


Peasant: — “I  demand  by  what  right  he 
will  force  me  to  quit  this  place?” 

Duke: — “ He  will  buy  it  of  you  for  sixty 
pennies,  and  the  horse  and  the  bull  shall 
be  yours.” 

Nowhere,  in  the  past,  was  the  sovereignty 
of  the  people  more  haughtily  declared,  than 
in  this  formality  of  the  old  Carinthians. 
“ It  bears  the  seal  of  remote  antiquity — of 
an  Homeric  or  Biblical  simplicity.”  That 
the  people  were  the  only  true  source  of 
power,  was  admitted  even  in  the  archaic 
periods  of  history.  Of  olden  time,  there 
were  many  forms  of  popular  government. 
Aristotle  made  a study  of  their  institutions. 
Greece  had  her  democracies  and  Italy  a 
great  republic.  In  Asia,  then,  as  now,  the 
assertion  of  political  power  was  the  sole 
foundation  for  its  maintenance. 

With  the  development  of  Christianity, 
in  Europe,  was  inculcated  the  theoretic  idea. 
Kings  were  anointed  and  they  ruled  b}^ 
“ divine  right.”  In  the  language  of  Mr. 


THE  ICING  IS  DEAD. 


215 


Tiedeman:  “The  king,  who  in  theory  ob- 
tained his  authority  from  God,  acknowledged 
no  natural  rights  in  the  individual.  Indi- 
vidual activity,  for  its  room,  depended  upon 
the  monarch’s  will.”  In  time,  however,  came 
the  Reformation  and  political  revolutions  in 
England,  France,  the  Netherlands,  Spain 
and  Italy.  To-day,  the  “divine  right”  of 
kings  is  generally  repudiated.  It  has  been 
displaced  by  the  ancient  principle  that  all 
power  is  derived  from  the  people.  “The 
people  were  once  subjects  of  the  king.  The 
government  is  now  subject  to  the  people.” 
“ The  king  is  dead,”  but  his  functions  yet 
live  in  “ the  state,”  or  the  people. 

While  many  ancient  statesmen  and  publi- 
cists recognized  the  proper  origin  of  power 
in  government,  their  opinions  as  to  its  nature 
and  extent  were  neither  clear  nor  sound. 
Wherever  lodged,  in  their  judgment,  power 
was  limitless  and  irresponsible.  Whether 
exercised  by  king  or  emperor,  by  an  aris- 
tocracy or  the  people,  it  was  absolute. 


2i6 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


Politically,  in  other  words,  the  individual  was 
annihilated  by  the  state.  Government  did 
not  permit  the  existence  of  any  personal 
right  that  it  “was  bound  to  respect.”  This 
is  also  true  of  later  times,  in  continental 
Europe.  True,  the  “divine  right”  of  kings 
was  repudiated,  but  not  the  doctrine  of  ab- 
solutism. “ Vox  Populi,  Vox  Dei','  became 
the  general  answer  to  all  complaints  of  the 
individual  against  the  encroachments  of 
popular  government  upon  his  rights  and 
liberty.”  In  the  name  of  the  people,  atrocious 
crimes  were  perpetrated  by  revolutionary 
governments. 

In  its  proper  sense,  individual  liberty  is 
a development  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  institu- 
tions. This  doctrine  is  fundamental  to  the 
English  Constitution.  The  principle  is  car- 
dinal and  vital  in  the  American  system  of 
government.  Individual  rights  are  protected 
by  constitutional  restrictions  upon  power, 
federal  and  state.  In  the  United  States, 
every  individual  is  a king.  This  accords 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


217 


with  the  so-called  laissez-faire  doctrine,  of 
modern  development  in  England  and  the 
United  States,  which  confines  the  sphere  of 
government  within  the  narrowest  limits,  and 
denies  to  it  the  power  to  do  more  than 
provide  for  public  order  and  personal  se- 
curity, by  the  prevention  and  punishment 
of  crimes  and  trespasses.  Under  the  influ- 
ence of  this  wholesome  principle,  with  us 
and  in  Great  Britain,  for  one  hundred  years, 
the  encroachments  of  government  upon  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  individual  have 
been  comparatively  few. 

In  other  words,  it  has  been  generally  ad- 
mitted by  the  wisest  and  broadest  states- 
manship, that  private  rights  and  personal 
liberty  do  not  exist  by  the  permission  of 
municipal  law.  They  are  natural  and  founded 
upon  the  law  of  reason ; that,  therefore, 
governmental  restraint  should  “ only  go  to 
the  limit  necessary  to  a uniform  and  reason- 
able conservation  of  private  rights.”  Muni- 
cipal law  protects  and  develops,  rather 


2i8 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


than  creates  private  rights  and  personal 
liberty. 

In  the  United  States  this  “limit”  has 
been  generally  fixed  at  the  power  to  enforce 
the  common  and  civil  law  maxim,  ''sic  utere 
tuo,  ut  alieum  non  Icedasi'  The  “ police 
power,”  it  is  called,  and  extends,  in  its 
broadest  sense,  to  the  preservation  of  peace 
and  good  order  to  the  protection  of  property 
rights,  “ and  of  the  lives,  limbs,  health  and 
comfort  of  all  persons.”  Any  law  which 
goes  beyond  this,  in  the  United  States,  at 
least,  and  undertakes  to  abolish  rights,  the 
exercise  of  which  do  not  infringe  upon  the 
rights  of  others;  or  limits  the  exercise  of 
rights  beyond  what  is  necessary  for  the 
public  welfare  and  general  security,  is  not 
properly  within  the  police  power. 

The  police  power,  then,  is  properly  con- 
cerned only  with  crimes  and  trespasses.  It 
cannot  rightfully  invade  the  realm  of  ethics, 
as  such.  Crime  is  theoretically  a direct  in- 
jury to  the  public,  and  trespass,  a direct  in- 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


2IQ 


jury  to  the  individual.  A vice,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  the  inordinate  gratification  of  one's 
desires  and  passions.  The  primary  damage 
is  to  one’s  self.  In  contemplating  the  na- 
ture of  a vice,  we  are  not  conscious  of  a 
trespass  on  the  rights  of  others.  Vice  does 
not  fall  within  the  police  power.  Expressed 
in  the  language  of  Mr.  Tiedeman,  “the 
object  of  police  power,  is  the  prevention 
of  crime — the  protection  of  rights  against 
the  assaults  of  others.  The  police  power 
of  the  government  cannot  properly  be 
brought  into  operation  for  the  purpose  of 
exacting  obedience  to  the  rules  of  morality, 
and  banishing  vice  and  sin  from  the  world. 
The  moral  laws  can  exact  obedience  only 
in  joro  conscientics . The  municipal  law  has 
only  to  do  v.^ith  trespasses.  It  cannot  be 
called  into  play  in  order  to  save  one  from 
the  evil  consequences  of  his  own  vices,  for 
the  violation  of  a right,  by  the  action  of 
another,  must  exist  or  be  threatened,  in 
order  to  justify  the  interference  of  law.” 


220 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


The  people  of  this  country  are  generally 
convinced  of  this  truth.  So  widespread  is 
the  conviction  that,  where  a law  “ does  not 
have  for  its  object  the  prevention  or  pun- 
ishment of  a trespass  upon  rights,  it  is 
impossible  to  obtain  for  it  an  enthusiastic 
and  unanimous  support.”  Besides,  it  is  true 
of  every  community,  when  “ public  opinion 
is  aroused  to  an  activity  that  will  enforce 
a law  for  the  prevention  of  vice,  the  moral 
force  alone  will  be  ample  to  suppress  it.” 
But  it  is  sometimes  urged  that  an  other- 
wise ineffectual  statute  may  serve  to  direct 
public  opinion  in  the  right  direction.  To 
this  I reply  that  one  unerring  truth  is  taught 
by  the  history  of  legislation;  ” It  is  the 
utter  futility,  in  a corrective  sense,  of  a law 
whose  enactment  is  not  the  unavoidable  re- 
sultant of  the  forces  then  in  play  in  organ- 
ized society.  Nothing  so  weakens  the  rever- 
ence for  law,  and  diminishes  its  effective- 
ness, as  still-born  statutes.” 

Certain  matters  are  generally  recognized 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


221 


to  be  within  the  police  power  of  the  state. 
For  instance,  the  control  of  infectious  and 
contagious  diseases,  of  the  insane,  of  habi- 
tual drunkards,  spendthrifts,  vagrants  and 
mendicants.  And  finally,  by  forced  con- 
struction, it  has  been  extended  to  the 
liquor  traffic.  The  law,  it  is  said,  may  pro- 
hibit the  sale  of  liquor  to  minors,  lunatics, 
persons  intoxicated,  confirmed  inebriates, 
and  other  persons  with  certain  weaknesses 
of  character.  Courts  maintain  that  while 
the  liquor  traffic  is  subject  to  the  police 
power,  yet  it  may  not  be  entirely  forbidden 
as  necessarily  injurious  to  the  public  in  a 
legal  sense.  To  quote  the  Supreme  Court 
of  Indiana,  in  Beabe  vs.  State:  “Where 
injury  does  result  (from  the  use  of  bever- 
ages) it  is  usually  caused  by  the  shortcom- 
ings of  the  purchaser,  without  any  partici- 
pation in  the  wrong  of  the  seller.  No 
business  can  be  prohibited  altogether,  un- 
less its  prosecution  is  necessarily  and  essen- 
tially injurious.  It  is  the  abuse  and  not 


222 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


the  use  of  beverages  that  is  hurtful.  The 
use  of  beverages  is  not  necessarily  destruc- 
tive to  the  community.  . . . Fire-arms 

and  gunpowder  are  not  manufactured  to 
shoot  innocent  persons,  but  are  often  so 
misapplied.  Axes  and  hatchets  are  not 
made  and  sold  to  break  heads  with,  but 
are  often  used  for  that  purpose.  Yet  who 
has  ever  contended  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  these  articles  should  be  prohibited 
as  a nuisance.  We  repeat,  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  liquors  are  not  necessarily  hurt- 
ful, and  therefore  may  not  be  entirely  pro- 
hibited.” 

So  much  for  the  “police  power,”  gener- 
ally considered.  But  what  of  its  relation  to 
gambling,  if  any?  If  the  practice  is  neither 
a crime  nor  a trespass,  then  it  is  not  rightfully 
subject  to  public  regulation.  I have  demon- 
strated to  the  candid  judgment  that,  of  itself, 
gambling  is  not  essentially  wrong.  I insist 
that,  at  least,  in  the  absence  of  fraud  and 
chicane,  it  is  neither  sinful,  nor  criminal. 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


223 


To  gamble  with  another  is  not  to  assault 
his  person  or  property  by  main  force.  To 
wager  or  bet  upon  the  laws  of  chance,  deceit 
aside,  is  not  to  kill,  maim,  rob,  or  cheat 
your  fellow  man;  the  players  freely  partici- 
pate in  the  hope  of  gain  or  for  amusement. 
Then  wherein  is  the  action  either  felonious 
or  tortious?  Why  should  the  police  power 
interfere?  That  it  cannot  properly  do  so, 
under  our  institutions,  is  conceded  by  Mr. 
Tiedeman.  He  is  an  able  and  accomplished 
lawyer,  and  recognized  by  the  profession  as 
an  authority  on  the  subject.  But  it  may  be 
said,  the  effects  are  injurious,  and  for  that 
reason  the  state  may  forbid  the  practice. 
That  gambling  is  “ necessarily  and  essenti- 
ally” injurious  to  society,  I deny.  As  a 
pastime,  it  is  innocent,  as  a principle  of 
action  it  permeates  the  business  world.  If 
an  amusement,  it  may  be  abused  to  the  detri- 
ment of  certain  individuals,  but  the  abuse 
of  a thing,  innocent  in  itself,  does  not  make 
that  thing  a crime.  When  an  occupation. 


224 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


it  is  but  natural  that  the  laws  of  chance 
should  operate  unevenly;  to  the  advantage 
of  some  and  to  the  disadvantage  of  others. 
Uniformity  of  success  in  affairs  is  impossible. 

Throughout  the  business  world,  in  every 
department  of  human  activity,  the  losers 
but  bear  a fixed  proportion  to  the  winners. 
Some  must  fail  that  others  may  succeed. 
Such  is  the  law  of  existence,  as  society  is 
constituted  to-day.  We  are  not  now  con- 
cerned with  ideals.  The  realities  suffice  for 
my  purpose.  Chance  is  at  present  the  great 
motive  power  of  the  world.  It  sustains  hope, 
and  stimulates  endeavor.  Through  its  oper- 
ation men  are  enriched  and  nations  aggran- 
dized. That  some  meet  with  disaster  and 
encounter  misfortune  does  not  prove  that 
appeals  to  chance  are  criminal  in  their 
nature,  nor  that  such  appeals  are  “ neces- 
sarily and  essentially”  injurious  to  the  state 
Consistently,  therefore,  gambling  cannot  be 
forbidden  because  in  its  pursuit  some  persons 
are  fool-hardy  and  others  unfortunate. 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


225 

I may  be  asked,  “ What  do  you  sug- 
gest?” I would  license  gambling,  and  place 
it  under  such  restrictions  as  would  tend  to 
lessen  its  abuse.  I am  willing,  for  practical 
purposes,  to  concede  this  much  to  the  police 
power.  If  this  policy  may  be  claimed  for 
the  liquor  traffic,  why  not  for  gambling 
also?  Is  gambling  more  injurious  than  in- 
temperance? No,  the  victims  of  alcohol 
outnumber  the  unfortunate  gamblers  a thou- 
sand to  one.  The  habitual  use  of  intoxi- 
cants is  necessarily  and  uniformly  injurious 
to  the  individual.  This  is  not  true  of 
gambling,  as  a pastime.  The  player  may 
win.  Some  of  the  players  must  win.  What- 
ever can  be  said  against  the  prohibition  of 
the  liquor  traffic,  applies  with  greater  force 
to  gambling.  If  there  are  reasons  why 
the  sale  of  intoxicants  may  be  licensed,  by 
the  state  and  municipal  authorities,  such 
reasons  serve  but  to  demand  a like  privilege 
for  gambling.  Briefly,  the  rule  laid  down 
by  the  Indiana  Supreme  Court  as  to  the 


226 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


liquor  traffic,  in  Beabe  vs.  State,  is  clearly 
applicable  to  games  of  chance  as  a business. 
This  is  obvious  from  the  whole  tenor  of 
my  discussion.  If  the  state  is  not  willing 
to  take  this  step,  then  leave  the  matter  to 
“local  option.”  Leave  it  to  the  municipal 
authorities,  whether  gambling  is  to  be  per- 
mitted or  not,  in  a given  locality.  Let  it 
be  a question  of  policy  and  toleration,  if 
you  will.  Regulations  may  be  imposed,  as 
with  the  saloon.  Recognize  the  existence 
of  gambling  as  a fixed  fact,  but  interpose 
a surveillance  for  the  prevention  of  fraud. 
As  with  the  saloon,  also,  provide  for  the 
protection  of  those  weaklings  who  are  ever 
wards  of  the  law;  “ minors,  drunkards,  lu- 
natics and  spendthrifts.”  This  policy  now 
obtains  generally  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
and  to  a certain  extent  in  several  of  the 
United  States:  notably,  Arkansas,  Texas 
and  California. 

“What!  would  you  have  gambling  public?” 
Yes,  rather  than  private;  and  that  is  the 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


227 


alternative  presented  to  the  wise.  The  ex- 
perience of  California,  in  this  matter,  is  that 
of  every  state  in  the  Union,  and  all  may 
profit  by  her  example.  In  the  words  of 
Judge  Murray  of  that  state:  “The  Legisla- 
ture, finding  a thirst  for  play  universally 
prevalent  throughout  the  state,  and  despair- 
ing of  suppressing  it  entirely,  attempted  to 
control  it  in  certain  bounds,  by  imposing 
restrictions  and  burdens  on  this  kind  of 
business.  The  license  operated  as  a permis- 
sion, and  removed,  or  did  away  with  the 
misdemeanor  as  it  existed.”  d'he  issue  for 
practical  men  is:  Shall  gambling  be  in  sight 
and  subject  to  control,  or  shall  it  be  out  of 
sight  and  beyond  control.  The  “situs”  of 
public  gambling  is  known  to  the  authorities, 
and  thus  may  its  conduct  be  supervised  and 
regulated:  its  every  operation  may  be  hourly 
inspected  by  the  police,  to  the  exclusion  of 
those  whom  the  law  may  with  propriety 
protect  from  their  own  acts,  and  the  preven- 
tion of  cheating  by  dishonorable  methods 


228 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


and  devices.  If  gambling  is  public,  in  brief, 
its  abuses  can  be  reduced  to  a minimum. 
When  repressed  at  known  points,  gambling 
is  not  thereby  discontinued.  It  is  thus  dis- 
tributed over  a wider  field,  there,  secretly 
to  thrive  in  its  worst  features.  Then  it  is 
that  fraud  and  theft  are  triumphant:  that 
“brace”  gamblers  “wax  fat”  and  their 
conscienceless  harpies  pray  in  secret  upon 
the  unwary  and  the  inexperienced.  Public 
gambling  is  generally  fair  and  honest.  Secret 
gambling  is  too  often  but  another  name 
for  a robbery  that  cannot  be  prevented 
by  either  police  or  magistrates.  Again, 
the  number  of  employees  are  few,  com- 
paratively, in  the  public  gambling  club, 
and  it  is  without  other  allurements  than 
naked  chance  may  offer.  Not  so  the  pri- 
vate institution,  the  patrons  of  which  may 
freely  partake  of  most  seductive  viands 
and  expensive  liquors ; rents  are  also 
higher,  and  more  employees  are  required. 
The  private  club  is  costly  in  the  extreme: 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


22Q 


an  extravagant  scale  is  necessary  to  its 
very  existence.  This  is  a severe  test  to 
the  scruples  of  a proprietor.  In  some 
way  he  must  meet  expenses  and  insure  a 
livelihood.  For  an  honest  gambler  the 
maintenance  of  a private  club  is  seldom 
possible. 

“ But  public,  gambling  would  be  a temp- 
tation to  the  poor  man.  You  admit  that 
poor  men  should  not  gamble?”  I answer, 
who  is  the  “poor”  man?  When  you  have 
found  him,  who  is  his  keeper?  Are  you 
the  custodian  of  his  judgment  and  in- 
clinations ? I am  of  opinion  he  would 
repudiate  your  guardianship  with  indig- 
nation. “Consistency  thou  art,”  indeed, 
“ a jewel.”  The  rich  and  well-to-do  may 
gamble,  perhaps,  but  not  the  man  of 
small  resources.  I ask,  who  has  the 
right,  for  that  reason,  to  say  the  latter  nay? 
Not  you,  rich  gambler  in  stocks  and  farm 
products;  nor  you,  sir,  who  nightly  gamble 
in  the  parlor  of  a comfortable  home, 


230 


THE  KING  IS  DEAD. 


or  at  the  private  club  you  assist  in  maintain- 
ing for  that  purpose.  By  what  authority 
were  you  constituted  the  keeper  of  a less 
fortunate  neighbor?  All  this  aside,  how- 
ever, the  suppression  of  public  gambling 
will  not  deter  any  man  from  the  pursuit, 
whether  “ rich  ” or  “ poor.”  A thousand 
avenues  are  opened  to  him,  despite  the 
law  and  the  authorities.  In  this  matter, 
society  must  trust  to  the  education  of  in- 
dividual character  and  the  gradual  amelior- 
ation of  mankind.  Besides,  if  gambling 
were  subject  to  regulation,  as  other  pursuits, 
our  laws  could  the  better  protect  whomso- 
ever it  might  desire. 


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